smiling, "and all at once it ended at the fence. Where can I take it up again?" He regarded her gravely. "The only way you can take it up again is to go back to it," he answered. "It doesn't cross my land, you know, and--I beg your pardon--but I don't care to have you do so. Besides staining your dress, you will very likely bruise my tobacco." He had never in his life stood close to a woman who wore perfumed garments, and he felt, all at once, that her fragrance was going to his brain. Delicate as it was, he found it heady, like strong drink. "But I could walk very close to the fence," said the girl, surprised. "Aren't you afraid of the poisonous oak?" "Desperately. I caught it once as a child. It hurt so." He shook his head impatiently. "Apart from that, there is no reason why you should come on my land. All the prettiest walks are on the other side--and over here the hounds are taught to warn off trespassers." "Am I a trespasser?" "You are worse," he replied boorishly; "you're a Fletcher." "Well, you're a savage," she retorted, angered in her turn. "Is it simply because I happen to be a Fletcher that you become a bear?" "Because you happen to be a Fletcher," he repeated, and then looked calmly and coolly at her dainty elegance. "And if I were anybody else, I suppose, you would let me walk along that fence, and even be polite enough to keep the dogs from eating me up?" "If you were anybody else and didn't injure my tobacco--yes." "But as it is I must keep away?" "All I ask of you is to stay on the other side." "And if I don't?" she questioned, her spirit flaring up to match with his, "and if I don't?" All the natural womanhood within her responded to the appeal of his superb manhood; all the fastidious refinement with which she was overlaid was alive to the rustic details which marred the finished whole--to the streak of earth across his forehead, to the coarseness of his ill-fitting clothes, to the tobacco juice staining his finger nails bright green. On his side, the lady of his dreams had shrunken to a witch; and he shook his head again in an effort to dispel the sweetness that so strangely moved him. "In that case you will meet the hounds one day and get your dress badly torn, I fear." "And bitten, probably." "Probably." "Well, I don't think it would be worth it," said the girl, in a quiver of indignation. "If I can help it, I shall never set my foot on your land again." "The wisest thing you can do is to keep off," he retorted. Turning, with an angry movement, she walked rapidly to the fence, heedless of the poisonous oak along the way; and Christopher, passing her with a single step, lowered the topmost rails that she might cross over the more easily. "Thank you," she said stiffly, as she reached the other side. "It was a pleasure," he responded, in the tone his father might have used when in full Grecian dress at the fancy ball. "You mean it is a pleasure to assist in getting rid of me?"