Lucian turned round with an instinctive feeling that a critical moment was at hand. He caught sight of something feminine behind the hedgerow; the next instant a remarkably nimble girl came over a half-made gap. The turnip-hoeing man uttered an exclamation which had much joy in it. ‘Lord sakes if it isn’t Miss Millie!’ he said, touching his cap. ‘Glad to see ’ee once again, missie. They did tell me you was coming from them furrineerin’ countries, and there you be, growed quite up, as one might say.’ ‘Not quite, but nearly, Boggles,’ answered Miss Chilverstone. ‘How’s your rheumatics, as one might call ’em? They were pretty bad when I went away, I remember.’ ‘They’re always bad i’ th’ winter, miss,’ said Boggles, leaning on his hoe and evincing a decided desire to talk, ‘and a deal better in summer, allus providing the Lord don’t send no rain. Fine, dry weather, miss, is what I want--the rain ain’t no good to me.’ ‘A little drop wouldn’t hurt the turnips, anyway,’ said Miss Chilverstone, looking about her with a knowing air. ‘Seem pretty well dried up, don’t they?’ She looked at Lucian. Their eyes met: the boy stared and blushed; the girl stared and laughed. ‘Did it lose its tongue, then?’ she said teasingly. ‘It seemed to have a very long and very ready one when it was swearing at poor old Boggles. What made him use such bad language to you, Boggles?’ ‘Lord bless ’ee, missie,’ said Boggles hurriedly, ‘he didn’t mean no harm, didn’t Master Lucian--he was telling me how they swear in Eye-talian. Not but what it didn’t sound very terrible--but he wouldn’t hurt a fly, wouldn’t Master Lucian, miss, he wouldn’t indeed.’ ‘Dear little lamb!’ she said mockingly, ‘I shouldn’t think he would.’ She turned on the boy with a sudden twist of her shoulders. ‘So you are Lucian, are you?’ she asked. ‘I am Lucian, yes,’ he answered. ‘Do you know who I am?’ she asked, with a flashing look. Lucian stared back at her, and the shadow of a smile stole into his face. ‘I think,’ he said musingly, ‘I think you must be Sprats.’ Then the two faced each other and stared as only stranger children can stare. Mr. Boggles, his watery old eyes keenly observant, leaned his chin upon his hoe and stared also, chuckling to himself. Neither saw him; their eyes were all for each other. The girl, without acknowledging it, perhaps without knowing it, recognised the boy’s beauty and hated him for it in a healthy fashion. He was too much of a picture; his clothes were too neat; his collar too clean; his hands too white; he was altogether too much of a fine and finicking little gentleman; he ought, she said to herself, to be stuck in a velvet suit, and a point-lace collar, and labelled. The spirit of mischief entered into her at the sight of him.