nted
shoot here and there. And when the silence had lasted too long, she
broke it without turning toward him:

"After all, if it were left to me, I had rather be merciful to these
soft little buds and sprays, and let the sun and the showers take
charge. A whole cluster of blossoms left free to grow as Fate fashions
them!--Why not? It is certainly very officious of me to strip a stem of
its hopes just for the sake of one pampered blossom. . . .
Non-interference is a safe creed, isn't it?"

But she continued moving along among the bushes, pinching back here,
snipping, trimming, clipping there; and after a while she had wandered
quite beyond speaking distance; and, at leisurely intervals she
straightened up and turned to look back across the roses at him--quiet,
unsmiling gaze in exchange for his unchanging eyes, which never left
her.

She was at the farther edge of the rose garden now where a boy knelt,
weeding; and Selwyn saw her speak to him and give him her basket and
shears; and saw the boy start away toward the house, leaving her leaning
idly above the sun-dial, elbows on the weather-beaten stone, studying
the carved figures of the dial. And every line and contour and curve of
her figure--even the lowered head, now resting between both
hands--summoned him.

She heard his step, but did not move; and when he leaned above the dial,
resting on his elbows, beside her, she laid her finger on the shadow of
the dial.

"Time," she said, "is trying to frighten me. It pretends to be nearly
five o'clock; do you believe it?"

"Time is running very fast with me," he said.

"With me, too; I don't wish it to; I don't care for third speed forward
all the time."

He was bending closer above the stone dial, striving to decipher the
inscription on it:

"Under blue skies
My shadow lies.
Under gray skies
My shadow dies.

"If over me
Two Lovers leaning
Would solve my Mystery
And read my Meaning,
--Or clear, or overcast the Skies--
The Answer always lies within their Eyes.
Look long! Look long! For there, and there alone
Time solves the Riddle graven on this Stone!"

Elbows almost touching they leaned at ease, idly reading the almost
obliterated lines engraved there.

"I never understood it," she observed, lightly scornful. "What occult
meaning has a sun-dial for the spooney? _I'm_ sure I don't want to read
riddles in a stran