"I have guided," she said, "but I don't. It was only in the beginning of things when there weren't enough real guides to go around. But, surely you don't need a guide. You've been to the Barren Lands and all sorts of wild places. You ought to be a first-class woodsman." "I thought I'd like to go fishing to-morrow," he said. "It's very disappointing. I've looked forward all my life to being guided by a young girl, and when I saw you, I said, if this isn't she, this is her living image." "You shall have Bullard," said Lee. "He knows all the best places." Herring complained to Arthur. "Your sisters," he said, "are said to be the best guides in the Adirondacks, but they won't take me out. How is a fellow to convalesce from typhoid if people aren't unfailingly kind to him?" Arthur laughed, and said that he didn't know. "Let me guide you," he offered. "No," said Herring, "it isn't that I want to be guided. It's that I want the experience of being guided by a girl. I want to lean back and be rowed." Herring walked in the woods and came upon Phyllis's garden, with Phyllis in the midst of it. "Halloo again!" he said. Now it so happened that he had never seen Phyllis before. She straightened from a frame of baby lettuce and smiled. She loved bright colors, and his flaming hair was becoming to her garden. "Halloo again!" she said. "Have you changed your mind?" he asked. She sparred for time and enlightenment and said: "It's against all the rules." "We could," said he, "start so early that nobody would know. I have often gotten up at five." "So have I," said Phyllis wistfully. "We could be back before breakfast." Phyllis appeared to think the matter over. "Of course," he said, "you said you wouldn't. But if girls didn't change their minds, they wouldn't be girls." "That," said Phyllis, "is perfectly true." To herself she said: "He's asked Lee or Gay to guide him, and thinks he's asked me." Now, Phyllis was not good with oars or fishing-tackle, but she liked Herring's hair and the fact that he never smiled. Furthermore, she believed that, if the worst came to the worst, she could find some of the places where people sometimes took trout. "I have never," said Herring, "been guided by a young girl." "What, never!" exclaimed Phyllis. "Never," he said. "And I am sure that it would work wonders for me." "Such as?" "It might lead me to take an interest in gardening. I have always hoped that I should some day." "People," thought Phyllis, "interested in gardening are rare--especially beautiful young gentlemen with flaming hair. Here is my chance to slaughter two birds with one stone." "You'll swear not to tell?" she exhorted. "Yes," he said, "but not here. Soon. When I am alone." He did not smile. "Then," she said, "be at the float at five-thirty sharp." That night she sought out Lee and Gay.