!

"Old Mrs. Prettyman was my mother's nurse," Robinette remarked as
Lavendar dipped his oars gently into the stream and began to row. "I
went to see her feeling quite grown up, and she seemed to consider me
still a child; I was feeling about four years old at the moment when
you appeared and woke me to the real world again."

She had dried her eyes now and had pulled her hat down so as to shade
her face, but Lavendar could see the traces of her weeping, and the
dear little ineffectual rag of a handkerchief was still in one hand.

"What on earth was she crying about?" he thought, as with lowered eyes
he rowed very slowly across, only just keeping the boat's head
against the current, and glancing now and then at the young woman.

Was it possible that this lovely person was going to be his
fellow-guest in that dull house? "My word! but she's pretty! and what
were the tears about ... and the little shoe? Did it belong to a child
of her own? Can she be a widow, I wonder," said Lavendar to himself.

"I often think," he said suddenly, raising his head, "that when two
people meet for the first time as utter strangers to each other, they
should be encouraged, not forbidden, to ask plain questions. It may be
my legal training, but I'd like all conversation to begin in that way.
As a child I was constantly reproved for my curiosity, especially when
I once asked a touchy old gentleman, 'Which is your glass eye? The one
that moves, or the one that stands still?'"

The tears had dried, the hat was pushed back again, the young woman's
face broke into an April smile that matched the day and the weather.

"Oh, come, let us do it," she exclaimed. "I'd love to play it like a
new game: we know nothing at all about each other, any more than if we
had dropped from the moon into the boat together. Oh! do be quick!
We've so little time; the river is quite narrow; who's to open the
ball?"

"I'll begin, by right of my profession; put the witness in the box,
please.--What is your name, madam?"

"Robinette Loring," she said demurely, clasping her hands on her knee,
an almost childlike delight in the new game dimpling the corners of
her mouth from time to time.

"What is your age, madam?" Lavendar hesitated just for a moment before
putting this question.

"I refuse to answer; you must guess."

"Contempt of Court--"

"Well, go on; I'm twenty-two and six weeks."

"Thank you, you are remarkably well preserved. I can hardly
believe--