ngly did she feel his presence now that the
thought occurred to her,--perhaps her mother had not wished her to forget
him!

"I did not suspect," she heard him saying, "that you would go out into
the world and create the beautiful gardens of which I have heard. But
you had no lack of spirit in those days, too."

"I was a most disagreeable child, perverse,--cantankerous--I can hear my
mother saying it! As for the gardens--they have given me something to
do, they have kept me out of mischief. I suppose I ought to be thankful,
but I still have the rebellious streak when I see what others have done,
what others are doing, and I sometimes wonder what right I ever had to
think that I might create something worth while."

He glanced at her quickly as she sat with bent head.

"Others put a higher value on what you have done."

"Oh, they don't know--" she exclaimed.

If something were revealed to him by her tone, he did not betray it, but
went on cheerfully.

"You have been away a long time, Alison. It must interest you to come
back, and see the changes in our Western civilization. We are moving
very rapidly--in certain directions," he corrected himself.

She appraised his qualification.

"In certain directions,--yes. But they are little better in the East.
I have scarcely been back," she added, "since I went to Paris to study.
I have often thought I should like to return and stay awhile, only
--I never seemed to get time. Now I am going over a garden for my father
which was one of my first efforts, and which has always reproached me."

"And you do not mind the heat?" he asked. "Those who go East to live
return to find our summers oppressive."

"Oh, I'm a salamander, I think," Alison laughed.

Thus they sat chatting, interrupted once or twice by urchins too small
to join in the game, who came running to Mr. Bentley and stood staring
at Alison as at a being beyond the borders of experience: and she would
smile at them quite as shyly,--children being beyond her own. Her
imagination was as keen, as unspoiled as a child's, and was stimulated by
a sense of adventure, of the mystery which hung about this fine old
gentleman who betrayed such sentiment for a mother whom she had loved and
admired and still secretly mourned. Here, if there had been no other,
was a compelling bond of sympathy . . . .

The shadows grew longer, the game broke up. And Hodder, surrounded by
an argumentative group keeping pace with him, came towar