The afternoon following their talk about Clementina, Gregory looked in for Fane behind the letter boxes, but did not find him, and the girl herself came round from the front to say that he was out buying, but would be back now, very soon; it was occasionally the clerk's business to forage among the farmers for the lighter supplies, such as eggs, and butter, and poultry, and this was the buying that Clementina meant. “Very well, I'll wait here for him a little while,” Gregory answered. “So do,” said Clementina, in a formula which she thought polite; but she saw the frown with which Gregory took a Greek book from his pocket, and she hurried round in front of the boxes again, wondering how she could have displeased him. She put her face in sight a moment to explain, “I have got to be here and give out the lettas till Mr. Fane gets back,” and then withdrew it. He tried to lose himself in his book, but her tender voice spoke from time to time beyond the boxes, and Gregory kept listening for Clementina to say, “No'm, there a'n't. Perhaps, the'e'll be something the next mail,” and “Yes'm, he'e's one, and I guess this paper is for some of youa folks, too.” Gregory shut his book with a sudden bang at last and jumped to his feet, to go away. The girl came running round the corner of the boxes. “Oh! I thought something had happened.” “No, nothing has happened,” said Gregory, with a sort of violence; which was heightened by a sense of the rings and tendrils of loose hair springing from the mass that defined her pretty head. “Don't you know that you oughtn't to say 'No'm' and 'Yes'm?”' he demanded, bitterly, and then he expected to see the water come into her eyes, or the fire into her cheeks. Clementina merely looked interested. “Did I say that? I meant to say Yes, ma'am and No, ma'am; but I keep forgetting.” “You oughtn't to say anything!” Gregory answered savagely, “Just say Yes, and No, and let your voice do the rest.” “Oh!” said the girl, with the gentlest abeyance, as if charmed with the novelty of the idea. “I should be afraid it wasn't polite.” Gregory took an even brutal tone. It seemed to him as if he were forced to hurt her feelings. But his words, in spite of his tone, were not brutal; they might have even been thought flattering. “The politeness is in the manner, and you don't need anything but your manner.” “Do you think so, truly?” asked the girl joyously. “I should like to try it once!” He frowned again. “I've no business to criticise your way of speaking.” “Oh yes'm--yes, ma'am; sir, I mean; I mean, Oh, yes, indeed! The'a! It does sound just as well, don't it?” Clementina laughed in triumph at the outcome of her efforts, so that a reluctant visional smile came upon Gregory's face, too. “I'm very mach obliged to you, Mr. Gregory--I shall always want to do it, if it's the right way.” “It's the right way,” said Gregory coldly. “And don't they,” she urged, “don't they really say Sir and Ma'am, whe'e--whe'e you came from?”