rises and startles
timid maidens without a cause?"

"He shall be held in captivity by the hand of his denouncer, until he
has sued for pardon and obtained her generous forgiveness," returned he,
holding out his palm.

She barely touched it with her own. "I see that your repentance is
sincere, so your pardon shall be speedy," laughed she.

"Your discrimination is at fault, I never felt more impenitent in my
life. I am a hardened wretch, Miss Fairchild, a hardened wretch! But you
do not ask me from what corner of the earth I have come. You take me too
much for granted; like the chirrup of a squirrel, let me say, or the
whistle of a bullfinch. But perhaps you think I inhabit these woods?"

"No; but a day like this is so full of miracles, why should we be
astonished at one more! I suppose you came on the train, but should not
be surprised to hear you started, like Pluto, from the earth. Anything
seems possible in such a sunshine."

"You are right, and I have sprung from the earth. I have been buried
five mortal months in a law-suit out west, or else I should have been
here before. I hope my delay has made me none the less welcome."

He was holding back a branch as he spoke, and his eyes were on a level
with hers. She felt caught as in a net, and struggled vainly to keep
down her color. "No," said she, "welcome is a guest's due, whether he
come early or late. I should be sorry to be lacking in the duties of a
hostess, though my drawing-room is somewhat more spacious than cosy,"
she continued, looking around on the fields into which they had emerged,
"and my facilities for bespeaking you welcome greater than my power to
make you comfortable."

"Comfort is a satisfaction of the mind, rather than of the body. I am
not _un_comfortable, Miss Fairchild." Then as he stooped to relieve her
of half her burden of trailing leaves and flowers, he exclaimed in a
matter-of-fact tone, "Your aunt is a notable woman, Miss Fairchild, I
admire her greatly."

"What!" said she, "you have been to the cottage? You have seen Aunt
Belinda?"

"Of course," laughed he, "or how should I be here? You have been sent
for, Miss Fairchild, and I am the humble bearer of your aunt's commands.
But I forget, the practical has nothing to do with such a day. I am
supposed to have sprung from the ground, and to know by instinct, just
in what nook you were hiding from the sunlight. Very well. I acknowledge
that instinct is sometimes capable of going a gre