"Well, that's where 'tis," he said, moving towards her on the seat. "I'm going to get on. I told you I was, long ago, and it's come true. My salary'll be a decent figure before this year's out, and I'm certain I'll make something out of the songs. Then there's my share of the farm. Mother don't give me more than she's obliged; but it's a tidy bit sometimes. Laura!--look here!--I know there's nothing in the way now. You were a plucky girl, you were, to throw that up. I always said so--I didn't care what people thought. Well, but now--you're free--and I'm a better sort--won't you give a fellow a chance?" Midway, his new self-confidence left him. She sat there so silent, so delicately white! He had but to put out his hand to grasp her; and he dared, not move a finger. He stared at her, breathless and open-mouthed. But she did not take it tragically at all. After a moment, she began to laugh, and shook her head. "Do you mean that you want me to marry you, Hubert? Oh! you'd so soon be tired of that!--You don't know anything about me, really--we shouldn't suit each other at all." His face fell. He drew sullenly away from her, and bending forward, began to poke at the grass with his stick. "I see how 'tis. I'm not good enough for you--and I don't suppose I ever shall be." She looked at him with a smiling compassion. "I'm not in love with you, Mr. Hubert--that's all." "No--you've never got over them things that happened up at Whinthorpe," he said roughly. "I've got a bone to pick with you though. Why did you give me the slip that night?" He looked up. But in spite of his bravado, he reddened again, deeply. "Well--you hadn't exactly commended yourself as an escort, had you?" she said lightly. But her tone pricked. "I hadn't had a drop of anything," he declared hotly; "and I'd have looked after you, and stopped a deal of gossip. You hurt my feelings pretty badly. I can tell you." "Did I?--Well, as you hurt mine on the first occasion, let's cry quits." He was silent for a little, throwing furtive glances at her from time to time. She was wonderfully thin and fragile, but wonderfully pretty, as she sat there under the cedar. At last he said, with a grumbling note: "I wish you wouldn't look so thin and dowie-like, as we say up at home--you've no cause to fret, I'm sure." The temper of twenty-one gave way. Laura sat up--nay, rose. "Will you please come and look at the sights?--or shall I go home?" He looked up at her flashing face, and stuck to his seat. "I say--Miss Laura--you don't know how you bowl a fellow over!" The expression of his handsome countenance--so childish still through all its athlete's force--propitiated her. And yet she felt instinctively that his fancy for her no longer went so deep as it had once done. Well!--she was glad; of course she was glad.