“Humph, you are dull! You ought to know from my accent that I’m not from Chicago. And I hope I haven’t a Kentucky girl’s air of waiting to be flattered to death. And no Indianapolis girl would talk to a strange man at the edge of a deep wood in the gray twilight of a winter day,—that’s from a book; and the Cincinnati girl is without my élan, esprit,—whatever you please to call it. She has more Teutonic repose,—more of Gretchen-of-the-Rhine-Valley about her. Don’t you adore French, Squire Glenarm?” she concluded breathlessly, and with no pause in her quick step. “I adore yours, Miss Armstrong,” I asserted, yielding myself further to the joy of idiocy, and delighting in the mockery and changing moods of her talk. I did not make her out; indeed, I preferred not to! I was not then,—and I am not now, thank God,—of an analytical turn of mind. And as I grow older I prefer, even after many a blow, to take my fellow human beings a good deal as I find them. And as for women, old or young, I envy no man his gift of resolving them into elements. As well carry a spray of arbutus to the laboratory or subject the enchantment of moonlight upon running water to the flame and blow-pipe as try to analyze the heart of a girl,—particularly a girl who paddles a canoe with a sure stroke and puts up a good race with a rabbit. A lamp shone ahead of us at the entrance of one of the houses, and lights appeared in all the buildings. “If I knew your window I should certainly sing under it,—except that you’re going home! You didn’t tell me why they were deporting you.” “I’m really ashamed to! You would never—” “Oh, yes, I would; I’m really an old friend!” I insisted, feeling more like an idiot every minute. “Well, don’t tell! But they caught me flirting—with the grocery boy! Now aren’t you disgusted?” “Thoroughly! I can’t believe it! Why, you’d a lot better flirt with me,” I suggested boldly. “Well, I’m to be sent away for good at Christmas. I may come back then if I can square myself. My! That’s slang,—isn’t it horrid?” “The Sisters don’t like slang, I suppose?” “They loathe it! Miss Devereux—you know who she is!—she spies on us and tells.” “You don’t say so; but I’m not surprised at her. I’ve heard about her!” I declared bitterly. We had reached the door, and I expected her to fly; but she lingered a moment. “Oh, if you know her! Perhaps you’re a spy, too! It’s just as well we should never meet again, Mr. Glenarm,” she declared haughtily. “The memory of these few meetings will always linger with me, Miss Armstrong,” I returned in an imitation of her own tone. “I shall scorn to remember you!”—and she folded her arms under the cloak tragically. “Our meetings have been all too few, Miss Armstrong. Three, exactly, I believe!” “I see you prefer to ignore the first time I ever saw you,” she said, her hand on the door. “Out there in your canoe? Never! And you’ve forgiven me for overhearing you and the chaplain on the wall—please!”