Persistently she studied the toe of her shoe. If Bob had thought her appealing before, now, demure against the background of budding apple trees, with a shaft of sunlight on her hair, and the kitten cuddled against her breast, she put to rout the few intelligent ideas remaining to the young man. Wonderingly, helplessly, he watched while she continued to caress the minute creature in her arms. "Are you staying here long?" she asked at length, gaining courage to look up. "I--eh--yes; that is--I hope so," Bob answered with sudden fervor. "You like Wilton then." "Tremendously!" "Most strangers think the place has great beauty," observed his guest innocently. "There's more beauty here in Wilton than I ever saw before in all my life," burst out Bob, then stopped suddenly and blushed. His listener dimpled. "Really?" she remarked, raising her delicately arched brows. "You are enthusiastic about the Cape, aren't you!" "Some parts of it." "Where else have you been?" The question came with disturbing directness. "Oh--why--Middleboro, Tremont, Buzzard's Bay and Harwich," answered the man hurriedly. As he named the list he was conscious that it smacked rather too suggestively of a brakeman's, and he saw she thought so too, for she turned aside to hide a smile. "You might sit down; won't you?" he suggested, eager that she should not depart. Flecking the dust from the soap box with his handkerchief, he dragged it forward and placed it near the workbench. As she bent her head to accept the crude throne with a queen's graciousness, Jezebel, roused into playful humor, thrust forth her claws and, encountering Bob as he rose from his stooping posture, fixed them with random firmness in his necktie. Now it chanced that the tie was a four-in-hand of raw silk, very choice in color but of a fatally loose oriental weave; and once entangled in its meshes the task of extricating its delicate threads from the clutch that gripped them seemed hopeless. It apparently failed to dawn on either of the young persons brought into such embarrassingly close contact by the dilemma that the kitten could be handed over to Bob; or that the tie might be removed. Instead they drew together, trying vainly to liberate the struggling Jezebel from her imprisonment. It was not a simple undertaking and to add to its difficulties the ungrateful beast, irritated by their endeavors, began to protest violently. "She'll tear your tie all to pieces," cried the stranger. "No matter. I don't mind, if she doesn't scratch you." "Oh, I am not afraid of her. If you can hold her a second longer, I think I can free the last claw." As the girl toiled at her precarious mission, Bob could feel her warm breath fan his cheek and could catch the fragrant perfume of her hair. So far as he was concerned, Jezebel might retain her hold on his necktie forever. But, alas, the slim, white fingers were too deft and he heard at last a triumphant: "There!"