So with Bob. The young lady fairly chucking herself at him in the punt he could not forbear to contrast with the enticing reserve of Mary. The more playfully (or desperately, poor girl) she chucked herself at him, the more did her charms cloy as against those of that other prize who so stoutly kept him at arm's-length. Nay, the more strenuously did she seek to entice his good offices, the more troubled was he to imagine why another of her sex should so slightingly regard him. Thus, as the day wore on, was Bob thrice impelled towards Mary--by initial attraction of her beauty; by natural instinct to show himself master where, till now, he had been bested; and by the stabbings of his wounded vanity. On Monday morning, then, he caught the ten o'clock train to town, hot in the determination immediately to see her and instantly to press his suit. He would try, he told himself, a new strategy. Bold assault had been proved ill-advised; for frontal attack must be substituted an advance more crafty. Its plan required no seeking. He would play--and, to a certain extent, would sincerely play--the part of penitent. He would apologise for Friday's lapse; would explain it to have been the outcome of sheer despair of ever winning her good graces. As to where he would find her he had no doubts. Dozing one day over a book, he had not driven David and Angela from the room until they had forced upon him a wearisome account of the secluded seat they had discovered in Regent's Park. His patience in listening was an example of the profit of casting one's bread upon the waters; for, making without hesitation for the seat, he discovered Mary. III. The children, as he approached, were standing before her. David had scratched his finger, and the three were breathlessly examining the wounded hand for traces of the disaster. Brightly Mary was explaining that the place of the wound was over the home of very big drops of “blug,” which could not possibly squeeze out of so tiny a window; when Angela, turning at footsteps, exclaimed: “Oh, dear, oh, dear, what _shall_ we do? Here's Bob!” Alarm drummed in Mary's heart: fluttered upon her cheeks. She had felt, as she told her George, so certain that from Bob she had now not even acknowledgment to fear, that this deliberate intrusion set her mind bounding into disordered apprehensions--stumbling among them, terrified, out of breath. When he had raised his hat, bade her good morning, she could but sit dumbly staring at him-questioning, incapable of speech. It was Angela that answered his salutation: “Oh, why _have_ you come here? You spoil _everything_.” “Hook!” said Bob. David asked: “What's hook?” “Run away.” “Why?” “Because I tell you to.” “Why?” Bob exclaimed: “Hasn't mother told you not to say 'Why' like that? Run away and play. I want to speak to Miss Humfray.” David swallowed the rising interrogation; substituted instead an observant poke: “Miss Humfray doesn't want to speak to you. She hates you.”