"How nice this all is," he remarked. "So rural, so peaceful, and so pleasant. I come from a place where there is no fruit, nor flowers, nor young ladies. You must be happy here." And he gave her a look which she thought very insinuating. "Oh, I am happy enough," she conceded, "because I am bound to be happy wherever the young ladies are. But I could wish that things were different too." And she thought herself very discreet that she had not spoken more clearly. "Things?" he repeated softly. "Yes, my young ladies have odd ideas; I thought you knew." He drew nearer to her side, very much nearer, and dropped the currants he had plucked gently into her pail. "I know they have a fixed antipathy to going out, but they will get over that." "Do you think so?" she asked eagerly. "Don't _you_?" he queried, with an innocent look of surprise. He was improving in his dissimulation, or else he succeeded better with those of whom he had no fear. "I don't know what to think. Are you an old friend of theirs?" she inquired. "You must be, to lunch with them." "I never saw them before to-day," he returned, "yet I am an old friend. Reason that out," he leered. "You like to puzzle folks," she observed, picking very busily but smiling all the while. "Do you give answers with your puzzles?" "Not to such sharp wits as yours. But how beautiful Miss Cavanagh is. Has she always had that scar?" "Ever since I knew her." "Pity she should have such a blemish. You like her, don't you, very much?" "I love her." "And her sister--such a sweet girl!" "I love them both." "That is right. I should be sorry to have any one about them who did not love them. _I_ love them, or soon shall, very much." "Are you," Doris inquired, with great inquisitiveness, "going to remain in Marston any time?" "I cannot say," sighed the old man; "I should like to. I should be very happy here, but I am afraid the young ladies do not like me well enough." Doris had cherished some such idea herself an hour ago, and had not wondered at it then, but now her feelings seemed changed. "Was it to see them you came to Marston?" said she. "Merely to see them," he replied. She was puzzled, but more eager than puzzled, so anxious was she to find some one who could control their eccentricities. "They will treat you politely," she assured him. "They are peculiar girls, but they are always polite." "I am afraid I shall not be satisfied with politeness," he insinuated. "I want them to love me, to confide in me. I want to be their friend in fact as I have so long been in fancy." "You are some relative of theirs," she now asserted, "or you knew their father well or their mother." "I wouldn't say no," he replied,--but to which of these three intimations, he evidently did not think it worth while to say.