The pretty Irish maid who opened the door smiled graciously and knowingly. It made him furious. She mistook his rage for blushes and giggled insinuatingly. "Miss Betty's in the garden, sor; she says to come right out there----" "What?" Ned gasped. "Yiss-sor; she saw you come up to the door just now and told me to tell you." Again the girl giggled and again he flushed with rage. He found her in the garden, busy with her flowers. The border of tall jonquils were in full bloom, a gorgeous yellow flame leaping from both sides of the narrow walkway which circled the high brick wall covered with a mass of honeysuckle. She held a huge pair of pruning shears, clipping the honeysuckle away from the budding violet beds. She lifted her laughing brown eyes to his. "Do help me!" she cried. "This honeysuckle vine is going to cover the whole garden and smother the house itself, I'm afraid." He took the shears from her pink fingers and felt the thrill of their touch for just a moment. His eyes lingered on the beautiful picture she made with flushed face and tangled ringlets of golden brown hair falling over forehead and cheeks and white rounded throat. The blue gingham apron was infinitely more becoming than the most elaborate ball costume. It suggested home and the sweet intimacy of comradeship. "You're lovely in that blue apron, Miss Betty," he said with earnestness. "Then I'm forgiven for making home folks of you?" "I'm very happy in it." "Well, you see I had no choice," she hastened to add. "I just had to finish these flowers before dressing for dinner. I'm expecting that handsome brother of yours directly and I must look my best for him, now mustn't I?" She smiled into his eyes with such charming audacity he had to laugh. "Of course, you must!" he agreed, and bent quickly to the task of clearing her violet bed of entangled vines. In ten minutes his strong hand had done the work of an hour for her slender fingers. "How swiftly and beautifully you work, Ned!" she exclaimed as he rose with face flushed and gazed a moment admiringly on the witchery of her exquisite figure. "How would you like me for a steady gardener?" "I hope you're not going to lose your job on your brother's paper?" "It's possible." "Why?" "We don't agree on politics." "A reporter don't have to agree with an editor. He only obeys orders." "That's it," Ned answered, with a firm snap of his strong jaw. "I'm not going to take orders from this Government many more days from the present outlook." Betty looked him straight in the eye in silence and slowly asked: "You're not really going to join the rebels?" The slender boyish figure suddenly straightened and his lips quivered: "Perhaps." "You can't mean it!" she cried incredulously. "Would you care?" he asked slowly.