a businesslike way, while, with my hands
deep in my pockets, I regarded her movements with silent interest, as
those of some strange new animal.

"I've been gardening," she explained, when she had joined me, "but I
didn't like it. There's so many worms about to-day. I hate worms. Wish
they'd keep out of the way when I'm digging."

"Oh, I like worms when I'm digging," I replied heartily, "seem to make
things more lively, don't they?"

She reflected. "Shouldn't mind 'em so much if they were warm and DRY,"
she said, "but--" here she shivered, and somehow I liked her for it,
though if it had been my own flesh and blood hoots of derision would
have instantly assailed her.

From worms we passed, naturally enough, to frogs, and thence to pigs,
aunts, gardeners, rocking-horses, and other fellow-citizens of our
common kingdom. In five minutes we had each other's confidences, and
I seemed to have known her for a lifetime. Somehow, on the subject of
one's self it was easier to be frank and communicative with her than
with one's female kin. It must be, I supposed, because she was less
familiar with one's faulty, tattered past.

"I was watching you as you came along the road," she said presently,
"and you had your head down and your hands in your pockets, and you
weren't throwing stones at anything, or whistling, or jumping over
things; and I thought perhaps you'd bin scolded, or got a stomach-ache."

"No," I answered shyly, "it wasn't that. Fact is, I was--I often--but
it's a secret."

There I made an error in tactics. That enkindling word set her dancing
round me, half beseeching, half imperious. "Oh, do tell it me!" she
cried. "You must! I'll never tell anyone else at all, I vow and declare
I won't!"

Her small frame wriggled with emotion, and with imploring eyes
she jigged impatiently just in front of me. Her hair was tumbled
bewitchingly on her shoulders, and even the loss of a front tooth--a
loss incidental to her age--seemed but to add a piquancy to her face.

"You won't care to hear about it," I said, wavering. "Besides, I can't
explain exactly. I think I won't tell you." But all the time I knew I
should have to.

"But I DO care," she wailed plaintively. "I didn't think you'd be so
unkind!"

This would never do. That little downward tug at either corner of the
mouth--I knew the symptom only too well!

"It's like this," I began stammeringly. "This bit of road here--up as
far as that corner--you know it's a ho