Clouds of Michaelmas daisies bordered the path; purple asters crowded up among the dead leaves and underbrush. She liked them all; and the dear old path seemed sweeter and more sheltered to her than ever. Still, she felt a care and an oppression unusual to her; she could not forget little Jay, who was almost always at her side when she walked here. She crossed the little bridge, that spanned what had been a "ravine" to her in younger days; and climbing up the hill, stopped on the top of a sandy cliff, crowned with a few cedars and much underbrush. Here was the blue bay spread out before her; the neck of land and the island that closed in the bay were all in bright autumn yellow and red. Sweet fern and bayberry made the air odorous; the little purplish berries on the cedars even gave out their faint tribute of smell in the clear, pure air. There was a seat in the low branch of a cedar, just on the edge of the bank. Here she sat down and tossed pebbles down the sandy steep, and thought of the perplexing question--how to rescue Jay; and Gabby, too, in parenthesis. Gabby was always in parenthesis, but she was not quite forgotten. Presently, on the still autumn atmosphere came the faint smell of a cigar. At the same moment, the crashing of a man's tread among the dry underbrush, in the opposite direction from whence she had herself come. Before she had time to speculate on the subject, Mr. Andrews stood before her, coming abruptly out of the thicket. He was as much surprised as she, and perhaps no better pleased. It was impossible for either to be unconscious of the last interview they had had just one month ago. Mr. Andrews' complexion grew a little darker, which was an indication that he was embarrassed, perhaps to find he was on the Varian's land; perhaps that he was confronting a young woman who did not approve of him; perhaps that he was confronting any young woman at all. Who knows--these middle-aged men with thick skins may have sensibilities of which no one dreams, and of which no one is desired to dream. Miss Rothermel's ordinarily colorless cheeks were quite in a flame. She half rose from her cedar seat, and then irresolutely sat down again. Mr. Andrews threw away his cigar down the sand bank, and without looking irresolute, possibly felt so, as he paused beside her. Her first word sealed him in his resolution not to raise his hat and pass on, as he would have done in an ordinary place. It was quite in character for her to speak first. "I didn't know you were in the country to-day," she said with embarrassment. "You do not stay up very often, do you?" Then she thought she couldn't possibly have chosen a remark more personal and unwise. She did not like him to think she knew his habits, and speculated about them. But here, she had told him the first thing.