A knock had struck the cottage door, and Jane Granite had run to answer it. She was in her tidy, blue gingham dress, but a little wet and crumply, as was to be expected on a Monday. She had snatched up a white apron, and looked like an excellent parlor-maid. For such, perhaps, the caller took her, for practical tact was not his most obtrusive quality. He was an elderly man, a gentleman; his mouth was stern, and his eyes were kind. He carried a valuable cane, and spoke with a certain air of authority, as of a man well acquainted with this world and the other too. He asked for Mr. Bayard, and would send up his card before intruding upon him; a ceremony which quite upset little Jane, and she stood crimson with embarrassment. Her discomfort was not decreased by the bewildering presence of a carriage at the gate of her mother’s garden. Beyond the rows of larkspur and feverfew, planted for the vase on Mr. Bayard’s study-table, Mr. Salt’s best carryall, splendid in spring varnish, loomed importantly. Pepper, with the misanthropy of a confirmed dyspeptic, drew the carryall, and ladies sat within it. There were two. They were covered by certain strange, rich carriage robes undreamed of by Mr. Salt; dull, silk blankets, not of Windover designs. The ladies were both handsomely dressed. One was old; but one--ah! one was young. “Mr. Bayard is in, my dear.” The voice of the caller rose over the larkspur to the carryall. “Will you wait, or drive on?” “We’ll drive on,” replied the younger lady rather hurriedly. “Helen, Helen!” complained the elder. “Don’t you _know_ that Pepper is afraid of the electric cars? I’ve noticed horses are that live in the same town with them.” Helen did not laugh at this, but her eyes twinkled irreverently. She wrapped herself in her old-gold silk blanket, and turned to watch the sea. She did not look at Mrs. Granite’s cottage. The dignified accents of the Professor’s voice were now wafted over the larkspur bed again. “Mr. Bayard asks if the ladies will not come up to his study, Statira? It is only one short flight. Will you do so?” Simultaneously Bayard’s eager face flashed out of the doorway; and before Helen could assent or dissent, her mother, on the young man’s arm, was panting up between the feverfew and into the cottage. Helen followed in meek amusement.