"I seem to have known you a long time," he said, as he sat down near her, after exchanging the small civilities that were necessary under the circumstances, "and I have been waiting for you as anxiously as though you were my best friend. I have been very busy all my life, and I don't enjoy idleness, though I imagined when I was working hard that I would relish a season of rest. I have little to do here except to wait for you and listen to the music. Had you delayed your coming many days longer I should have called on you at your home. You are the only acquaintance I have in the town whose society I covet." There was no mistaking that the girl had been expecting him, and that she was pleased that he came in so promptly. Her manner indicated it, and she was perfectly willing to neglect her practice for his company, which had not been the case before. She was better dressed, too; and surely she would have been disappointed had not Dorris made his appearance. Annie Benton, like her father, improved on acquaintance. She was neither too tall nor too short, and, although he was not an expert in such matters, Dorris imagined that her figure would have been a study for a sculptor. A woman so well formed as to attract no particular comment on first acquaintance, he thought; but he remarked now, as he looked steadily at her, that there was a remarkable regularity in her features. There are women who do not bear close inspection, but Annie Benton could not be appreciated without it. Her smile surprised every one, because of its beauty; but the observer soon forgot that in admiring her pretty teeth, and both these were forgotten when she spoke, as she did now to Dorris, tiring of being looked at; for her voice was musical, and thoroughly under control: "I have dreaded to even pass The Locks at night ever since I can remember," she said with some hesitation, not knowing exactly how to treat the frankness with which he acknowledged the pleasure her presence afforded him, "and I don't wonder that anyone living in it alone is lonely. They say there is a ghost there, and a mysterious light, and a footstep on the stair; and I am almost afraid to talk about it." Allan Dorris had a habit of losing himself in thought when in the midst of a conversation, and though he said he had been waiting patiently to hear the music, it did not arouse him, for the girl had tired of waiting for his reply, and gone to playing. Now that he was in her presence he did not seem to realize the pleasure he expected when he walked under the trees and waited for her. Perhaps he was thinking of the footstep on the stair, which he had become so accustomed to that he thought no more of it than the chirping of a cricket; but more likely he was thinking that what he had in his mind to say to the girl, when alone, was not at all appropriate now that he was with her.