mfortable
laughter; "but it is no use talking of what I shall do when I am down: I
am not down yet; I wish I were."

"It is no great distance from the ground," he says, coming nearer the
wall, standing close to where the apricot is showering down her white
and pinky petals. "Are you afraid to jump? Surely not! Try! If you will,
I will promise that you shall come to no hurt."

"But supposing that I knock you down?" say I, doubtfully. "I really am a
good weight--heavier than you would think to look at me--and coming from
such a height, I shall come with great force."

He smiles.

"I am willing to risk it; if you do knock me down, I can but get up
again."

I require no warmer invitation. With arms extended, like the sails of a
windmill, I hurl myself into the embrace of Sir Roger Tempest. The next
moment I am standing beside him on the gravel-walk, red and breathless,
but safe.

"I hope I did not hurt you much," I say with concern, turning toward him
to make my acknowledgments, "but I really am very much obliged to you; I
believe that, if you had not come by, I should have been left there till
bedtime."

"It must have been a very unpleasant speech that you made to deserve so
severe a punishment," he says, looking back at me, with a kindly and
amused curiosity.

I do not gratify his inquisitiveness.

"It was something not quite polite," I answer, shortly.

We walk on in silence, side by side. My temper is ruffled. I am planning
five distinct and lengthy vengeances against Bobby.

"I dare say," says my companion presently, "that you are wondering what
brought me in here now--what attraction a kitchen-garden could have for
me, at a time of year when not the most sanguine mind could expect to
find any thing good to eat in it."

"At least, it is sheltered," I answer, shivering, thrusting my hands a
little farther into the warm depths of my muff.

"I was thinking of old days," he says, with a hazy, wistful smile. "Ah!
you have not come to the time of life for doing that yet. Do you know, I
have not been here since your father and I were lads of eleven and
twelve together?"

"_You_ were eleven, and _he_ was twelve, I am sure," say I,
emphatically.

"Why?"

"You look _so much_ younger than he," I answer, looking frankly and
unembarrassedly up into his face.

"Do I?" (with a pleased smile). "It is clear, then, that one cannot
judge of one's self; on the rare occasions when I look in the glass it
seems to me