e theme," she added hastily.

He held aside an encroaching briar, stretching its thorny arm across
the path. "Here's the beginning of the trail down to Lydford," he
said. "We will be there in twenty minutes. It's almost a straight drop
down."

CHAPTER XXVIII

SYLVIA ASKS HERSELF "WHY NOT?"

If Sylvia wondered, as she dropped down the heights to the valley,
what her reception might be at her aunt's ceremonious household when
she entered escorted by a strange hatless man in blue overalls, her
fancy fell immeasurably short of the actual ensuing sensation. Mrs.
Marshall-Smith, her stepson, Felix Morrison, and old Mr. Sommerville
were all sitting together on the wide north veranda, evidently waiting
to be called to luncheon when, at half-past one, the two pedestrians
emerged through a side wicket in the thick green hedge of spruce, and
advanced up the path, with the free, swinging step of people who have
walked far and well. The effect on the veranda was unimaginable.
Sheer, open-mouthed stupefaction blurred for an instant the composed,
carefully arranged masks of those four exponents of decorum. They
gaped and stared, unable to credit their eyes.

And then, according to their natures, they acted. Mrs. Marshall-Smith
rose quickly, smiled brilliantly, and stepped forward with welcoming
outstretched hands. "Why, Sylvia dear, how delightful! What an
unexpected pleasure, Mr. Page!"

Old Mr. Sommerville fairly bounded past Sylvia, caught the man's arm,
and said in an anxious, affectionate, startled voice, "Why, Austin!
Austin! Austin!"

Morrison rose, but stood quietly by his chair, his face entirely
expressionless, palpably and correctly "at attention." He had not seen
Sylvia since the announcement of his engagement the day before. He
gave her now a graceful, silent, friendly salute from a distance as
she stood by her aunt, he called out to her companion a richly cordial
greeting of "Well, Page. This is luck indeed!" but he indicated by his
immobility that as a stranger he would not presume to go further until
the first interchange between blood-kin was over.

As for Arnold, he neither stirred from his chair, nor opened his mouth
to speak. A slow smile widened on his lips: it expanded. He grinned
delightedly down at his cigarette, and up at the ceiling, and finally
broke into an open laugh of exquisite enjoyment of the scene before
him.

Four people were talking at once; Mr. Sommerville, a dismayed old hand