‘Miss Plowden,’ he said, ‘I beg your pardon,’ and then he added, breathlessly, ‘I am running after a lady--don’t laugh--an old friend of whom I had a sudden glimpse. I have pursued her all the way from the lake, and thought I had kept her well in sight, but at last I have lost the track. Have you met any one? Excuse me for keeping you in the rain.’ ‘A lady?’ said Emmy. ‘No, I have seen no one--that is, no one that is not well known in Watcham. I suppose it was a stranger?’ ‘How can I tell?’ said Leo in his perplexity; ‘a slight woman, exceedingly swift and energetic--witness, I have not been able to make up with her all this way--in a cloak--impermeable--what do you call it?--like what you wear.’ ‘In a waterproof!’ said Emmy. ‘No one has passed me but the schoolmistress. It could not be the schoolmistress?’ The idea was so ludicrous to Leo that he burst into a laugh in the midst of his wretchedness and perplexity. ‘That does not seem likely,’ he said. ‘No one else has passed,’ said Emmy; ‘but there are some lanes, if the lady had wanted a short cut to the station, for instance.’ ‘That is exactly what I should expect.’ ‘Then if you will turn down to the right the first opening you come to, and afterwards to the left, and then---- The quickest way,’ she said suddenly, with a blush and a laugh, ‘would be to show you; for I fear I am not clever enough to describe it.’ ‘Not in this rain?’ ‘Oh, I don’t care for the rain. We are out in all weathers; it will not take ten minutes.’ She had already turned and was hastening on in the direction she had indicated with a friendly desire to serve him, at which Leo admired and wondered. ‘Besides, I don’t call this bad rain,’ said Emmy cheerfully, ‘it is so soft and warm. But for habit I should prefer to have no umbrella. But you, perhaps, would like a share of mine?’ ‘Thanks, it would do me no good and hamper you. I am as wet as I can be.’ ‘Yes, you are very wet I see. Well, there is one good thing, you cannot be any worse now, and you must change as soon as you get in. When one is only a little wet one does not see the need, but when it is as bad as that you must. This way: I am afraid it is a little dirty, Mr. Swinford,’ said Emmy, with a tone of apology, as if it were somehow her fault. ‘It is not very clean,’ he said, with a laugh, ‘but it is worse for you than for me. I have an object, but you have none, save kindness,’ he added, with a grateful look that pleased Emmy. ‘If it were kindness,’ she said, ‘that is the best object of all. But I can’t claim that, for it is a pleasure to help a--friend if one can, in such a very little thing.’ ‘You hesitated, Miss Plowden, before you said a friend.’ ‘Yes,’ she said, with the faint little laugh of embarrassment, ‘I was not sure that I knew you enough to use that name.’ ‘I hope,’ cried Leo, ‘you will never doubt that again after all the rain and mud you have faced to help me.’