"I did not!" declared Eve despairingly. "Nor did I specially observe his
teeth or his hair or his feet, or--"

"But you noticed the scar on his face, didn't you?"

"Yes, I couldn't very well help doing that," owned Eve. "Any more than
I could help noticing his hands."

"So strong looking, aren't they?" asked Miss Mullett, eagerly.

"Are they? I thought them rather ugly."

"Oh, how can you say so? Just think of all the wonderful things those
hands must have done! And as for the scar, I thought it gave him quite a
distinguished air, didn't you?"

"Carrie Mullett, I am not interested in Mr. Herrick. If you say another
word about him before luncheon--"

"You can say that if you like," interrupted Miss Mullett placidly, "but
you are interested in him, my dear."

"Carrie!"

"Then why can't you write your story? Oh, you can't fool me, my dear!"

Eve turned a disdainful back and picked up her pen, resentful of the
warmth that she felt creeping into her cheeks.

Miss Mullett smiled and drew a new thread from the skein.

X.

"You observe," said Wade the next morning, "I come through the gate in
the hedge."

The intermittent showers of yesterday afternoon and night had cleaned
the June world, and the four ancient cedars from which the Walton place
had received its name, and in the broken shade of which Eve was reading,
exhaled a spicy odor under the influence of moisture and warmth. Eve, a
slim white figure against the dark-green of the foliage, the sun
flecking her waving hair, looked up, smiled and laid her book down.

"Good morning," she said. "Have you come to help me be lazy?"

"If you need help," he replied. "I brought these. They're not much, but
I think they're the last in the village." He handed her a half-dozen
sprays of purple lilac, small and in some places already touched with
brown.

"Oh," she said, "they're lovely!" She buried her face in them and
crooned over them delightedly. Witnessing her pleasure, Wade had no
regrets for his hour's search over the length and breadth of Eden
Village. She laid them in her lap and looked up curiously. "Where did
you get them? Not from your hedge?"

"Oh, I just stopped at the florist's as I came along," he laughed. "He
apologized for them and wanted me to take orchids, but I told him they
were for the Lilac Girl."

"Is that me?" smiled Eve. "Thank you very much." She made a little bow.
"I feel dreadfully impolite and inhospitable, Mr. Herrick, at n