Evidently she had forgotten the angle worm on her neck, a part of which was bare in front. Reginald didn’t like bare necks, but this was so much like a piece of polished marble that he rather admired it, and watched her while she chided Tom for never writing to her, or coming to see her for so long a time. Tom returned her banter playfully, but was looking at Rena, who was sitting where the lamplight fell upon her as it did upon Irene, bringing out her delicate features in profile and showing her beautiful eyes which rested very often, but very furtively, upon the man in the rocker. He was ill at ease, fidgeting a good deal, and acting as if he didn’t know what to do with his hands or his feet, the latter of which were stretched out in front of him so far that it seemed as if he were in danger of slipping to the floor. To add to his discomfiture Mrs. Parks came bustling in from the kitchen, pulling down her sleeves as she came, and exclaiming: “For the land’s sake, company and only the one lamp! Where’s Charlotte Anne! Let me light the reflector.” She held a match to the lamp on the wall, and the room was at once flooded with light which showed more perfectly the people in it—Tom Giles, with a comical expression on his handsome face; Mr. Travers, looking as if he wanted to get out of sight by sliding down into the cellar; Rena, with a look I could not understand in her eyes; and Irene, the central figure, wholly self-possessed, but with an air of very becoming shyness about her whenever she looked at Mr. Travers and caught him looking at her. She and Tom did the talking at first, and when he saw nothing was expected of him, Mr. Travers gradually came out of his shell and straightening up looked more like the elegant gentleman I had seen in church. He did not talk much, nor was it necessary, for when Tom, in response to Irene’s question as to what there was to do or see in the neighborhood, replied that he had been there too short a time to know, she must ask Mr. Travers, or better yet, Mrs. Parks, that lady who had seated herself as if the call included her, began volubly to descant upon the different points of interest to be visited. The drives, the pond, the sea, where there were two or three bath-houses, the old mine, where a burglar was once hidden for a week, and at last—Nannie’s Well! I felt sure she would reach it in time and wondered if Mr. Travers had heard of it. “You know about it, of course, and maybe you don’t want to hear it again,” she said to him, as she settled herself more squarely in her chair. Reginald bowed and said: “I have heard of it, but don’t mind me if the rest would like it.” “Oh, tell it, please!” Irene exclaimed, in the pretty way of a child asking for a story.