At this point Jinny became aware of Barnaby himself, who, equally in his shirt-sleeves, was smiling sheepishly up at her from the ditch which he was discumbering with a hook. “Lilies of the walley they stick in their buttonholes,” went on his father waggishly, “as if weeds was ever aught but weeds. There ain’t one that showlders his sack o’ corn or sticks to his dearie. Sheep’s eyes they can make, but as for sheep-hurdles——!” The note was now earnest. It seemed an unpropitious moment to tackle Barnaby. And to make it more impossible, Blanche herself suddenly bounded from the orchard, flourishing a great corroded pear. “Nipped thirteen!” she cried gaily. “Not bad-lookin’,” forsooth! To Jinny she appeared in her bloom and colour like a rich peach dipped in cream: overripeness was the only flaw her beauty suggested to this girl in her teens. But the chill at Jinny’s heart did not prevent her crying out with equal gaiety, “What an unlucky number—for the wasps!” Barnaby laughed adoringly from his ditch, Mr. Giles Purley in simple joy of the slaughter. The pigs, he explained gleefully, had gnawed at the pear-bags and Blanche was “wunnerful masterous” at nipping the wasps as they crawled out of the forbidden fruit. Asps, Jinny found herself thinking, would have a bad time at such bold hands, though they made the Cleopatra likelier—she slued her eyes round to see the rings on them, but the engagement finger was hidden by the big pear, and Miss Jones, her gaiety checked, was eyeing her like the intruder she was. “She can kill two at once,” Barnaby called up. “Like you with the lasses,” flashed his father, to his confusion. “It’s nothing,” said Blanche coldly. “They haven’t time to curl their tails round.” “Who? The lasses?” asked Jinny, and to her relief the beautiful Blanche vouchsafed a smile. “You won’t be stung if you don’t think you’ll be,” the girl explained more cordially. Then, unable to retain the proud secret longer, even from the Carrier, she burst forth, “I’m going on the stage with it.” “What!” Jinny gasped. “Only as a beginning, of course. ‘Bianca, The Bare-Handed Wasp-Killer,’ it’ll be on the bills.” “Rubbidge!” came explosively from Mr. Purley. “And where will Mr. Flippance get the wapses in the winter? A circus-slut indeed—I wonder what your mother can be thinkin’ of! And what’s Mr. Honeytongue going to bill _you_ as, Barnaby? Not champion hurdle-maker, I’ll go gaff!” “Wait till you see me,” said Barnaby with sullen mysteriousness. “You don’t know a circus from a theaytre.” “You’ll stick to your shackles and bolts,” said his parent grimly, “and peel the bark off, too!”