"Let us compare notes, Miss Blanche, and see to whom the rock belongs by right of discovery. Won't you be seated?" I said, making a place for her. "I came to see the sunset," she replied after a moment's hesitation, "and if it won't incommode you I will stay. Should you not care to talk, please read on: I shall not mind. And won't you light another cigar? I have no objection to cigars in the open air, though I think them disgusting in the house." "Thank you," I said as she sat down and I took another Havana for the one I had thrown away at her arrival. "Will you relate to me the manner of your discovery? I would rather not read." "About two weeks ago," she began, looking over the landscape, and not at me, "I was sitting in the arbor below, and I heard Mrs.--well, a lady coming whom, to be sincere with you, I dislike. If I stayed, I knew she would have a long talk with me: if I walked on, she might call me back. I looked about in haste for a hiding-place. The bushes near me appeared as if I might get behind them: I pushed through, saw a little path, which I followed, turned round the base of a hillock, and found two rocks, upon which I raised myself with the help of a sapling. Then, carefully parting the branches, I saw this," waving her small hand that I might see it, but still not looking at me. "The sun was just setting; away down in yonder field the sorrel was as fire in its rays; a catbird was reciting a merry pastoral in the thicket beyond; two goats stood high on a bank, like satyrs guarding the place. You see why I come again." "I have the right of discovery," I cried gayly: "I made the path and placed the rocks. I claim it, that I may lay it at your feet." "Do you like it?" she asked, turning to me and laying a slight stress on "you." "I told you I admired pretty things, and you know, Miss Blanche, I am a bit of a poet." She smiled: "Ah yes; but do you really admire this?" "Of course I do--think it dem foine." She laughed outright--a laugh so gay that I joined her, though I could not tell why. "As for sorrel," I added, "you ought to see The Beauties: the fields are full of it, though the farmers don't seem to admire it much." "Well, I am very fond of the sorrel," she replied, "with the clover-tops, the seed-globes of dandelion and the daisies by the water: it makes quite a bouquet in yonder field." I looked at her to see if she was chaffing me: not at all--she was sober as a judge. "Dem foine! I beg pardon, very nice indeed. How would you like to carry it to the ball this evening?" "I never take anything to a ball that I care to have appreciated," she answered dryly. "Aw! That is the reason you won't sing down there: isn't it, now? But, really, they thought it fine the other night--quite clever, I heard some of them say." "Oh yes," with a weary smile that had a little contempt in it. "Did that ugly little Italian know very much about singing? You seemed pleased with his admiration."