After an interlude, during which the bees boomed among the honey-blossoms, the birds caroled on the boughs, and the two artists laughed softly as they chatted at their delightful work, Paul resumed: "Do you know, Miss. Juno, this anti-climax strikes me as being exceedingly funny? When I met you the other day, I felt as if I'd met my fate. I know well enough that I'd felt that way often before, and promptly recovered from the attack. I certainly never felt it in the same degree until I came face to face with you. I was never quite so fairly and squarely face to face with any one before. I came here because I could not help myself. I simply had to come, and to come at once. I was resolved to propose to you and to marry you without a cent, if you'd let me. I didn't expect that you'd let me, but I felt it my duty to find out. I'm dead sure that I was very much in love with you--and I am now; but somehow it isn't that spoony sort of love that makes a man unwholesome and sometimes drives him to drink or to suicide. I suppose I love you too well to want to marry you; but God knows how glad I am that we have met, and I hope that we shall never really part again." "Paul!"--Miss. Juno's rather too pallid cheeks were slightly tinged with rose; she seemed more than ever to belong to that fair garden, to have become a part of it, in fact;--"Paul," said she, earnestly enough, "you're an awfully good fellow, and I like you so much; I shall always like you; but if you had been fool enough to propose to me I should have despised you. Shake!" And she extended a most shapely hand that clasped his warmly and firmly. While he still held it without restraint, he added: "Why I like you so much is because you are unlike other girls; that is to say, you're perfectly natural." "Most people who think me unlike other girls, think me unnatural for that reason. It is hard to be natural, isn't it?" "Why, no, I think it is the easiest thing in the world to be natural. I'm as natural as I can be, or as anybody can be." "And yet I've heard you pronounced a bundle of affectations." "I know that--it's been said in my hearing, but I don't care in the least; it is natural for the perfectly natural person _not_ to care in the least." "I think, perhaps, it is easier for boys to be natural, than for girls," said Miss. Juno. "Yes, boys are naturally more natural," replied Paul with much confidence. Miss. Juno smiled an amused smile. Paul resumed--"I hardly ever knew a girl who didn't wish herself a boy. Did you ever see a boy who wanted to be a girl?" "I've seen some who ought to have been girls--and who would have made very droll girls. I know an old gentleman who used to bewail the degeneracy of the age and exclaim in despair, 'Boys will be girls!'" laughed Miss. Juno. "Horrible thought! But why is it that girlish boys are so unpleasant while tom-boys are delightful?"