Good-naturedly she turned up a corner of her skirt to act as mail pouch, for the papers, circulars, and what not made quite a budget. Reaching the boundary of her land when halfway uphill, and being wrist-cramped by the double load, she dropped her flowers and mail, and sitting in the shade began to sort it. Behind her was the rye field, and the wind curling across the crisping ears, now gold-green, made sound as of a gently rising tide on pebbled shores, while as she leaned against the bank the bayberry, sweet-gale, and hay ferns breathed their wild fragrance. Oh, what a day it was! June dominance and rush yielding to the more finished manners of July—nothing was lacking! That is, nothing attainable; the love of things seemed to eclipse the love of people. Ah, no, not quite, for as she gazed idly at the letters in her lap, her heart gave a great throb, and one square package lurched and slid between her trembling fingers, for the address on it was written in Ashton’s eccentric hand. Picking it up, she laid the others by, and steadying herself deliberately broke the seal, for it was sealed endwise with wax. Inside was a double-folded piece of foreign-looking paper, but no other address or postmark, the transit cover evidently having been torn or soiled, and not a written word of any sort in view. Within its folds a little square of millboard, the duplicate of that which had borne her picture, only from this looked forth the face of Lorenz himself, standing in a doorway, clad in his loose blouse, palette and brush in hand. The heavy thatch of hair shaded his forehead deeply, the face was thinner than she remembered it, the chin under the thick mustache more determined, the jaw set with a depth of purpose, while the eyes looked half away as if seeking inspiration and yet followed her everywhere, until Brooke covered them with her hand a moment as if to escape the too tense gaze of a real presence. Hoofs sounded on the road, and there passed by Enoch Fenton with his horse-rake, coming in neighbourly fashion to help the farmer-on-shares gather up the timothy hay from its last sunning to house it before nightfall; to-morrow it would be turn about, according to country lore. Seeing Brooke he stopped, and after making the usual crop and weather epigrams, said: “That there man of our’n is right smart and steady, but he hustles too much and he’s losing girth—’fore summer’s out he’ll be slim enough to swim through an eel run. I’ve advised him, if he’s goin’ to follow the soil, to locate farther north, but he seems unsettled and I reckon he’ll move on after leaf-fall,—they mostly do, the smart ones, besides which he acts as if the girl he’s waitin’ fer wasn’t comin’. If she don’t, she’s a silly, for I nary seen a man with two strong hands hev such a wise head!