He asked her to play croquet. Una played a game which had been respected in the smartest croqueting circles of Panama; she defeated him; and while she blushed and insisted that he ought to have won, Mr. Schwirtz chuckled about his defeat and boasted of it to the group on the porch. "I was afraid," he told her, "I was going to find this farm kinda tame. Usually expect a few more good fellows and highballs in mine, but thanks to you, little sister, looks like I'll have a bigger time than a high-line poker Party." He seemed deeply to respect her, and Una, who had never had the débutante's privilege of ordering men about, who had avoided Henry Carson and responded to Walter Babson and obeyed chiefs in offices, was now at last demanding that privilege. She developed feminine whims and desires. She asked Mr. Schwirtz to look for her handkerchief, and bring her magazine, and arrange her chair cushions, and take her for a walk to "the Glade." He obeyed breathlessly. Following an old and rutted woodland road to the Glade, they passed a Berkshire abandoned farm--a solid house of stone and red timbers, softened by the long grasses that made the orchard a pleasant place. They passed berry-bushes--raspberry and blackberry and currant, now turned wild; green-gold bushes that were a net for sunbeams. They saw yellow warblers flicker away, a king-bird swoop, a scarlet tanager glisten in flight. "Wonder what that red bird is?" He admiringly looked to her to know. "Why, I think that's a cardinal." "Golly! I wish I knew about nature." "So do I! I don't really know a thing--" "Huh! I bet you do!" "--though I ought to, living in a small town so long. I'd planned to buy me a bird-book," she rambled on, giddy with sunshine, "and a flower-book and bring them along, but I was so busy getting away from the office that I came off without them. Don't you just love to know about birds and things?" "Yuh, I cer'nly do; I cer'nly do. Say, this beats New York, eh? I don't care if I never see another show or a cocktail. Cer'nly do beat New York. Cer'nly does! I was saying to Sam Cannon, 'Lord,' I says, 'I wonder what a fellow ever stays in the city for; never catch me there if I could rake in the coin out in the country, no, _sir_!' And he laughed and said he guessed it was the same way with him. No, sir; my idea of perfect happiness is to be hiking along here with you, Miss Golden." He gazed down upon her with a mixture of amorousness and awe. The leaves of scrub-oaks along the road crinkled and shone in the sun. She was lulled to slumberous content. She lazily beamed her pleasure back at him, though a tiny hope that he would be circumspect, not be too ardent, stirred in her. He was touching in his desire to express his interest without ruffling her. He began to talk about Miss Vincent's affair with Mr. Starr, the wealthy old boarder at the farm. In that topic they passed safely through the torrid wilderness of summer shine and tangled blooms.