"No, I haven't, Jack," she said, and then she sat down in the chair and told him the whole story. He listened with a grave face right to the very end, and then bent over and kissed her. "I'm glad I didn't shoot the hawk," he said. "Still, you know, Elsie dear, it was only a dream." But Elsie knew better. The Bronze-Haired Girl "If you will pass me my guitar," said George, "I will sing to you." "I would rather you washed up," I replied. "It would be more of a novelty." "For one who professes to be an artist," returned George, with unruffled serenity, "you are painfully lacking in sensibility. A man who can speak of washing up ten minutes after tea on a golden June evening----" "If you are going to get poetical, George," I said, "I would sooner you sang. Here you are." I reached out an arm into the tent, and tossed him across the somewhat battered banjo which was lying on his bed. He caught it neatly with his left hand. "I believe you would play cricket with a Stradivarius," he said reproachfully. "What shall I sing?" "Anything short." "I shall sing something sad," he went on, disregarding my interruption. "I always feel very wistful after tea. Besides, I am in love with the bronze-haired girl at Otter's Holt, and perhaps she will hear me and think that I am unhappy." "She is much more likely to think that I am," said I. "Fire ahead." He twanged two or three experimental chords, tightened a couple of pegs, and then settling down again in his basket-chair, launched out pathetically into the time-honoured ballad of "London Bridge": Hurry along, sorrow and song, All is vanity 'neath the sun; Velvet and rags, so the world wags, Until the river no more shall run. "I shall not applaud you," I said, when he had finished. "You might mistake courtesy for an encore." "I wonder if the bronze-haired girl heard me?" murmured George, laying down the banjo. "Unless she is deaf," I pointed out, "she could scarcely have avoided it. She probably thinks we are a couple of music-hall comedians." "Perhaps I had better call to-morrow and apologize," said George thoughtfully. I looked him in the eyes. "George," I observed, "if I find you thrusting your society on that defenceless young woman, I shall communicate with the local policeman." "She is not defenceless," objected George. "She has a dog and an old woman with her; and as for youth--well, I am but a lad myself." I laughed unkindly. "In the matter of hair," I said, glancing at the top of George's head. "Hair," said George hastily, "has nothing to do with it. Hair is an excrescence, a hideous and perpetual reminder of our arboreal ancestry." "You had better tell her that," I replied. "She would appreciate it." "I was not speaking of bronze hair. You never saw a bronze-haired monkey." "It may be dyed," I suggested. George picked up his banjo. "Such blasphemy," he said, "deserves a heavy punishment. I shall sing you 'Beauty's Eyes.'"