I was very much annoyed and disturbed. Evidently this sort of thing had been going on for some time and I had just discovered it. It placed me in a miserable light. When Colton had declared, as he had in both our interviews, that the Lane was a nuisance I had loftily denied the assertion. Now those idiots in the village were doing their best to prove me a liar. I should have expected such behavior from Hallet and his friends, but for Captain Dean to tacitly approve their conduct was unexpected and provoking. Well, I had made my position plain, at all events. But I knew that Tim would distort my words and that the idea of my “standing in” with the Coltons, while professing independence, would be revived. I was destined to be detested and misunderstood by both sides. Yes, Dorinda was right in saying that I might find sitting on the fence uncomfortable. It was all of that. I entered the grove and was striding on, head down, busy with these and similar reflections, when some one said: “Good morning, Mr. Paine.” I stopped short, came out of the day dream in which I had been giving Captain Jed my opinion of his followers' behavior, looked up, and saw Miss Colton in the path before me. She was dressed in white, a light, simple summer gown. Her straw hat was simple also, expensive simplicity doubtless, but without a trace of the horticultural exhibits with which Olinda Cahoon, our Denboro milliner, was wont to deck the creations she prepared for customers. Matilda Dean would have sniffed at the hat and gown; they were not nearly as elaborate as those Nellie, her daughter, wore on Sundays. But Matilda or Nellie at their grandest could not have appeared as well dressed as this girl, no matter what she wore. Just now she looked, as Lute or Dorinda might have said, “as if she came out of a band box.” “Good morning,” she said, again. She was perfectly self-possessed. Remembrance of our transit of Mullet's cranberry brook did not seem to embarrass her in the least. Nellie Dean would have giggled and blushed, but she did not. _I_ was embarrassed, I admit it, but I had sufficient presence of mind to remove my hat. “Good morning,” said I. There flashed through my mind the thought that if she had been in that grove for any length of time she must have overheard my lively interview with Kendrick and Tim Hallet. I wondered if she had. Her next remark settled that question. “I suppose,” she said, soberly, but with the same twinkle in her eye which I had observed once or twice in her father's, “that I should apologize for being here, on your property, Mr. Paine. I judge that you don't like trespassers.” I was more nettled at Zeb and his crowd than ever. “So you saw that performance,” I said. “I'm sorry.” “I saw a little of it, and I'm afraid I heard the rest. I was walking here by the bluff and I could not help seeing and hearing.” “Humph! Well, I hope you understand, Miss Colton, that I did not know, until just now, this sort of thing was going on.”