Then she got up and started down the mountain, and when she was about half-way home she turned a boulder and came suddenly upon Lawrence Blake with his gun and his dogs. Instantly his thin face lit up with a smile. “I saw your sister with Masterman and O’Hara about fifteen minutes ago,” he said, “and I wondered where you were. Your sister shot a rabbit running in fine style.” “She is a splendid shot,” replied Eileen warmly. “She killed her first snipe this summer.” “Did she, indeed! That’s excellent for a girl. But then she ought to have been a boy, really, oughtn’t she? One can’t help feeling there’s good material wasted.” “Why wasted?” she asked. “Well, to be rather rudely candid, I am not an admirer of your sex at all.” “Isn’t it rather poor to judge the many by a few who may have disappointed you?” “It would be more correct to say the ‘few’ by the many who have disgusted me.” “I am sorry,” she said simply: “I wish it had not been so.” “If you knew the world as I do, you would see that it could hardly be otherwise.” “Still, I am sorry,” she reiterated; “dreadfully sorry.” He watched her a moment covertly. She was looking her best, with the freshness of the mountain air glowing in her eyes and cheeks. He was thinking she looked as well in her tam-o’-shanter, short skirt, and blouse, with linen collar and cuffs, as anything he had ever seen her in. Compared with some of the resplendent beauties he had admired, she was as the cosy fireside is to the marble palace, or the fragrant violet is to the dazzling poppies. And then for a moment on the mountain side, with the fresh blowing winds, and the fragrance, and the loveliness of the lake and mountains, an unusually soft mood seemed to take possession of him, and something apart from her beauty to stir his pulses and rest his senses. As they moved on, he dropped the bitter, sneering tone so habitual to him, and chatted to her frankly and charmingly with unmistakably an assumption of some special link between them. Later on, Eileen went in home with shining eyes and light footsteps, feeling as if already her prayer had been answered; and Lawrence’s mother glanced at him across the luncheon table, wondering to what good angel they were indebted for his amiability, instead of his more usual taciturn moodiness. In the afternoon he drove her out himself to pay a call some miles distant, chatting pleasantly all the way; and at dinner, he condescended to discuss various matters connected with the dance, instead of preserving his customary silence. Then he went into his den for a smoke, and so preoccupied was he for a few moments that he did not notice a large, flat piece of pasteboard lying on the table, which had evidently arrived by the evening post. Instead, he glanced with a casual air of appreciation round his beloved bachelor domain, wondering, half-unconsciously, if perhaps the time were coming for him to settle down and give up his wanderings.