By the time he had reached the entrance to the brook his forehead was again beaded with perspiration and his thin negligée shirt showed a disposition to cling to his shoulders. It was one of those intensely hot and exceedingly humid days which the early summer so often visits upon New England. Even the birds seemed to feel the heat and instead of singing and darting about across the shadowed stream were content to flutter and chirp drowsily amidst the branches. The hum of the insects held a lethargic tone that somehow, like a locust’s clatter in August, seemed to increase the heat. Ethan went slowly up the winding stream with divided opinions on the subject of his own sanity. To sit in a canoe in the broiling sun on a morning like this merely to talk to a girl was rank idiocy, he told himself. Then he recalled her eyes, her tantalizing little laugh, the soft tones of her voice, the provocative ghost of a smile that so often trembled about her red lips, and owned that she was worth it. After he had slipped under the stone footbridge it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps the girl would object quite as strongly as he to making a martyr of herself in the interests of polite conversation! Perhaps she wouldn’t come at all! In which case he would have had his journey for naught――and possibly a sunstroke thrown in! The more he considered that possibility the more reasonable it became, until, when he had shot the canoe into the little pond, and saw that the bank was empty of aught save a pair of the swans who were stretching their wings in the sunlight, he was not surprised. “She certainly has more sense than I have,” he muttered. Not a breath of air stirred the leaves of the encircling fringe of trees. The little lake was like an artist’s palette set with all the tender greens and pinks and whites and yellows of summer. “I hope you like my pool?” inquired a voice. [Illustration: “I HOPE YOU LIKE MY POOL?” INQUIRED A VOICE.] Ethan turned from his survey of the scene and saw that the girl was standing under the shade of a willow a little distance up the slope. She was all in white, as yesterday, but a broad-brimmed hat of soft white straw hid her hair and threw a shadow over her face. Ethan raised his own less picturesque panama and bowed. “It’s looking fine to-day, I think,” he answered. “Perhaps just a little bit ornate, though. There’s such a thing as over-decorating even a lotus pool.” He turned the bow of the canoe toward the bank, swung it skilfully and stepped ashore. The girl watched him silently. When he had pulled the nose of the craft onto the grass and dropped his paddle he walked toward her. A little flush crept into her cheeks, but her eyes met his calmly. “This is all dreadfully wrong, you know,” she said gravely. He stopped a few feet away and fanned himself with his hat. “Yes, very warm, isn’t it?” he agreed affably. “In the first place,” she went on severely, “you are trespassing.”