d the
mystery of its deep brown pools, and the light of the golden flecks
upon its surface. There were the same brown shadows and golden lights
repeated in the masses of bronze hair piled like a crown on the top of
her shapely head.

From some impulse he did not understand, Gilbert felt a vague desire to
apologize for his very existence. It seemed as though that searching
glance had read the frivolous thoughts in which he had been indulging.
He wondered, in deep mortification, if she had noticed any faint tinge
of familiarity in his manner.

"I--I beg your pardon. I hope I did not startle you," he said, half
stammering. "I hope you will let me help you across."

"Thank you, you are very kind." Her voice was low, and very musical,
her manner was dignity itself. "I did not know the spaces were so
wide." She spoke with a frank simplicity, looking at him very honestly
and very gravely, and Gilbert felt tacitly rebuked. He was struck by
the fact that this country girl, in the coarse dress and sunbonnet,
whom he had whimsically likened to a rustic lass, to be helped across a
brook for a kiss, had instantly, by a mere glance, clothed the
situation in an impregnable mantle of conventionality. He took her
basket and held out his hand, feeling as though he were about to assist
a princess from her carriage. With a touch she sprang past him and
stepped quietly up the bank. "Thank you," she said, sedately, as she
took the basket from him. "I think it is Dr. Allen to whom I am
indebted, is it not?"

Gilbert clutched his hat again. "Yes, I am very fortunate to have had
the privilege," he said, feeling with relief that he was beginning to
recover.

"I am Miss Cameron," she said, with a stateliness that seemed to
convert the sunbonnet into a crown, and the basket of eggs into a
scepter.

Gilbert's mind dived back into the remembrance of his stableboy's
remarks of a few minutes earlier. What had he said? He could not
remember, except that the village had designated some one of that name
as the object of his future attentions, and there was something, too,
about red hair. He thought her hair beautiful--quite wonderful,
indeed, in its bronze splendor.

He murmured some polite remark, and was wondering if he might ask to be
allowed to carry the basket of eggs up the hill, or if he would be
committing an outrage by so doing, when he was saved from making a
second mistake by a shout from the opposite bank:

"Elsie!