asily the nicest girl I ever
met--the very nicest. Do you think that I might have her for a friend?"

"Do you mean this girl, Calypso?"

"Yes."

"Then I think that she will return to you the exact measure of
friendship that you offer her.... Because, Mr. Hamil, she is after all
not very old in years, and a little sensitive and impressionable."

He thought to himself: "She is a rather curious mixture of impulse and
reason; of shyness and audacity; of composure and timidity; of courage
and cowardice and experience. But there is in her no treachery; nothing
mentally unwholesome."

They stood silent a moment smiling at each other rather seriously; then
her smooth hand slid from his, and she drew a light breath.

"What a relief!" she said.

"What?"

"To know you are the kind of man I knew you were. That sounds rather
Irish, doesn't it?..." And under her breath--"perhaps it is. God knows!"
Her face grew very grave for a moment, then, as she turned and looked at
him, the shadow fell.

"Do you know--it was absurd of course--but I could scarcely sleep last
night for sheer dread of your coming to-day. And yet I knew what sort of
a man you must be; and this morning"--she shook her head--"I couldn't
endure any breakfast, and I usually endure lots; so I took a spin down
the lake in my chair. When I saw you just now I was trying to brace up
on a guava. Listen to me: I am hungry!"

"You poor little thing--"

"Sympathy satisfies sentiment but appetite prefers oranges. Shall we eat
oranges together and become friendly and messy? Are you even _that_ kind
of a man? Oh, then if you really are, there's a mixed grove just
beyond."

So together, shoulder to shoulder, keeping step, they passed through the
new grove with its enormous pendent bunches of grape-fruit, and into a
second grove where limes and mandarins hung among clusters of lemons and
oranges; where kum-quat bushes stood stiffly, studded with egg-shaped,
orange-tinted fruit; where tangerines, grape-fruit, and king-oranges
grew upon the same tree, and the deep scarlet of ripe Japanese
persimmons and the huge tattered fronds of banana trees formed a riotous
background.

"This tree!" she indicated briefly, reaching up; and her hand was white
even among the milky orange bloom--he noticed that as he bent down a
laden bough for her.

"Pine-oranges," she said, "the most delicious of all. I'll pick and you
hold the branch. And please get me a few tangerines--those
blood