"I can't," said the youth with mock meekness; and he smiled again. At that moment, while the Judge struggled for a reply and while the youth was turning back to the ladder as though to mount it and be done with the conversation, two things happened. Up from one side came Mrs. Tiffany; and from the other, where ran a road dividing the Tiffany orchard from the next, approached a buckboard driven by a lolling Portuguese. Beside him sat a girl all in brown, dust-resistant khaki, who curtained her face with a parasol. Mrs. Tiffany ran, light as an elderly fairy, down the rows. "Eleanor!" she called. "Dear, dear Aunt Mattie!" cried the girl. Judge Tiffany, too, was hurrying forward to the road. The youth had his hand on the ladder, prepared to mount, when the parasol dropped. He stopped short with some nervous interruption in his breathing--which might have been a catch in his throat--at the sight of her great, grey eyes; stood still, watching. Mrs. Tiffany was greeting the girl with the pats and caresses of aged fondness. Out of their chatter, presently, this came in the girl's voice: "And I was so excited about getting back that when Antonio left the corral gate open I never thought to speak to him. And Ruggles's Dynamo--they've let him run away again--just walked in and butted open the orchard bars and he's loose now eating the prune trees!" "Edward, you must go right over!" cried Mrs. Tiffany; and then stopped on the thought of an old man trying to subdue a Jersey bull, good-natured though that bull might be. The same thought struck Judge Tiffany. Antonio, the Portuguese, lolling half-asleep against the dashboard, was worse than useless; the nearest visible help was a Chinaman, incompetent against horned cattle, and another Portuguese, and-- "Let me corral your bull," said the easy, thrilling voice of the boy who stood beside the step-ladder. Judge Tiffany turned in reproof, his wife in annoyance, the girl in some surprise. The youth was already walking toward the buckboard. "I guess that lets you out, John," he said to the Portuguese. Something in him, the same quality which had made the Judge smile back through his rebuke concerning the green apricots, held them all. The Judge spoke first: "Very well, Mr.--" "Chester--Bertram Chester," said the youth, throwing his self-introduction straight at the girl. "Mr. Chester is one of the University boys who are picking for us this summer," said Judge Tiffany. "Yes?" replied the girl in a balanced, incurious tone. Her eyes followed Mr. Chester, while he took the reins from the deposed Antonio and waited for her to mount the buckboard. As she sprang up, after a final caution from Mrs. Tiffany, she perceived that he was going to "help her in." With a motion both quick and slight, she evaded his hand and sprang to the seat unaided.