ny and her father there was a choice flower there which
was not to be touched.

Julia went to the market town as she had arranged. Mr. Gillat worked
in the garden; Captain Polkington watched him for a little and then
went out, after spending, as he always did, some time getting ready.
He took a basket with him; he thought of collecting fir-cones and he
objected to the sack, though it held a vast deal more; he felt
carrying it to be derogatory to a soldier and a gentleman. It is true
he did not get fir-cones that day, but he really meant to when he
started.

Julia, in the meantime, did her shopping, and, having loaded herself
with as much as she could carry--more than most people could except
those Continental maids and mistresses who do their own marketing, she
started for home. It was a long walk--a long way to Halgrave and a
good bit beyond that to the cottage. She did not expect to reach the
village till dusk, but she thought very probably she would find her
father or Mr. Gillat there; she had suggested that one or both of them
should come to meet her and help carry the parcels the rest of the
way.

Johnny fell in with the suggestion; she saw him through the twilight
before she reached the village. Her father, she concluded, was still
sulky at her refusal to have his company earlier and so would not come
now.

"I suppose father would not come?" she said, as she and Mr. Gillat
walked on after a readjustment of the burden.

"Oh, no," Johnny answered; "it was not that; I'm sure he would have
come if he had been in when I started, but he was not back then."

"Not back?" Julia repeated. "Why, where has he gone?"

"Well," Johnny replied slowly, "he said he was going to get fir-cones,
but I'm not sure, I didn't see him go across the heath. Still, I dare
say he went--he took a basket, so I think he must have gone."

Julia apparently did not find this very conclusive evidence. "There is
not anywhere much about here where he can go," she said; much less as
if she were stating a fact than as if she were reviewing likely and
unlikely places. "There is only the one road, and that goes to
Halgrave, and there is nowhere for him there."

"No, oh, no," Johnny said; "there really is nowhere there."

"There is the 'Dog and Pheasant,'" Julia went on meditatively, "but he
would not get anything he cared about there."

"No," Mr. Gillat said decidedly; "besides he would not go there, he
would not sit in a small country public