now I was lying, resting and hoping that any moment Miss Grant would
commence her nightly musicale.

Jake, and his dog Mike, I presumed, were already in their accustomed
places, Jake smoking his pipe and Mike biting at mosquitoes and other
pestiferous insects which lodged and boarded about his warm, hairy
person.

The cottage door opened and our fair entertainer stepped out.

She came across the rustic bridge and made straight for my place,
humming softly to herself as she sauntered along. She was hatless as
usual and her hair was done up in great, wavy coils on her well-poised
head. Her hands were jammed deep into the pockets of her pale-green,
silk sweater-coat. She impressed me then as being at peace with the
world and perfectly at ease; much more at ease than I was, for I was
puzzling myself as to what her wish with me could be, unless it were
regarding some groceries that she might have overlooked during the day.

She smiled as she came forward.

I rose from the hammock.

"Now, don't let me disturb you," she said. "Lie where you are.

"I shall do splendidly right here."

She sat down on the top step of the veranda and turned half round to me.

"Do you ever feel lonely, Mr. Bremner?"

"Yes!--sometimes," I answered.

"What do you do with yourself on such occasions?"

"Oh!--smoke and read chiefly."

"But,--do you ever feel as if you had to speak to a member of the
opposite sex near your own age,--or die?"

She was quite solemn about this, and seemed to wait anxiously as if the
whole world's welfare depended on my answer.

"Sometimes!" I replied again, with a laugh.

"What do you do then?"

"I lie down and try to die."

"--and find you can't," she put in.

"Yes!"

"Just the same as I do. Well!--" she sighed, "I have explored all the
beauties of Golden Crescent; I have fished--and caught nothing. I have
hunted,--and shot nothing. I have read,--and learned nothing, or next
to it, until I have nothing left to read. So now,--I have come over to
you. I want to be friends."

"Are we not friends already?" I asked, sitting on the side of my
hammock and filling my vision with the charming picture she presented.

She sighed and raised her eyebrows.

"Oh!--I don't know. You never let me know that you had forgiven me for
my rudeness to you."

"There was nothing to forgive, Miss Grant."

"No! How kind of you to say so! And you are not angry with me any
more?"

"Not a bit," I answered