"No! Did you, though?" cried Gerald. "I say! Where was it? I never meant to do it when people were round. I'm awfully sorry." "Oh, no!" said Margaret, confused. "Why shouldn't you? It--it was by the edge of the bog. I had come round that way, and you were leaping with a pole about the bog, and I--stayed to watch you. I hope you don't mind;" this foolish girl was blushing again furiously, which was most unnecessary; "and--I thought you must be a foreigner; I don't know why. And--and then you came out, and turned a somersault, and--I wondered why, that was all. You see, I never had a brother, and I have never known any boys in all my life till now. I don't mean that you are a boy, of course!" "Oh, but I _am_!" cried Gerald. "What else am I but a boy? I wish they could hear you at home. Why, I'm just Jerry, you know, and--and I've always been that kind of boy, I'm afraid; just like Willy, only a good deal worse. And now--well, I've been through college, and now I'm in the School of Mines, and I'm twenty-one, and all that, but I can't seem to make myself feel any older, don't you know. I don't know what's going to become of me. Hilda says I won't grow up till I fall--oh! you don't know Hilda, do you, Miss Montfort?" "Hilda?" repeated Margaret. "I only know Hilda in the 'Marble Faun.'" "Hildegarde Merryweather; Hildegarde Grahame she used to be. I thought you might possibly have--well, she's my aunt according to the flesh. I wish you did know her!" "Your aunt? Is she--is she about Uncle John's age? I know so few people, you see. I have lived a very quiet life." "Oh, no! She--well, I suppose she's a little older than you, but not very much. She married Roger, don't you know. He's my half-uncle all right, but he's ever so many years younger than the Pater, nearer our age, you might almost say; and Hildegarde and the girls, my sisters,--I say! I wish you knew them all, Miss Montfort." "I wish I did," said Margaret, simply. "There are no girls of my own age near here. Last year I had my cousins, and I miss them so much!" "Of course you must!" said sympathetic Gerald. "Girls are no end--I--I mean, I like them too, ever so much." He paused, and wished he knew the right thing to say. How pretty and sweet she was! Not like Hilda, of course (Hilda was this young man's ideal of what a girl should be), but with a little quiet way of her own that was very nice. She must have no end of a time of it with these youngsters! He spoke his thought aloud. They were nearing Fernley, and he must leave her soon. "You must be having some difficulty with those youngsters, Miss Montfort. If I could help you any time, I wish you'd let me know. There have always been such a lot of us at home, I'm used to most kinds of children, you see; and I should be ever so glad--" [Illustration: "'Won't you come in?'"]