"No, she is not like them, except in her courage and indomitable will. Her father must have been something unusual. She is probably like him." "And she was brought up in India." "Yes; that might account for many of her peculiarities; or perhaps the truth is that she grew up in India without having been brought up at all." "That's more like it," assented Humphreys. "But she is not here now, and you are, so I wish you would tell me something about yourself; won't you?" "Oh, there's nothing interesting about me," said Stella, laughing: "I'm not eccentric, I didn't grow up in India, and I'm really very much like all the other young women you've ever met." "Not exactly," said Humphreys; "for none of them ever received me in a tree before." "Oh, that's mere force of circumstance--I had no intention of doing so; and it's really only through one of Ladybird's crazy pranks that you are here now." "That is true," said Humphreys, with more meaning than she knew. If Stella Russell had seemed to him beautiful the night before, she seemed a thousand times more so now. Her type is often at its best in the morning. Her youth and wonderful color, with the accessories of fresh, crisp, pink muslin, and the green leaves of the apple-tree, made a picture which Chester Humphreys never forgot. And beside all this perfection of æsthetic beauty, he saw in the girl a beauty of mind and soul which shone in her dark eyes as they met his across the apple-boughs. All this was brought home to him so positively that only his subconscious sense of the fitness of things kept him from speaking his thoughts aloud; and the situation was appreciably relieved when Stella said casually: "Are you staying down to-day, Mr. Humphreys?" "Yes," he said conventionally; "I go back this afternoon." "Ah! you are a relative of the Misses Flint?" "No, not that, but my mother was an old friend; though I had never met the Flint ladies until yesterday." "And you live in the world?--the great outside world? I have always longed for it." "And why shouldn't you have it?" Humphreys's eyes across the green apple-boughs looked straight into Stella's. "Because I am not of the world," she said simply; "because I'm a country girl--country born and bred." "But that doesn't mean that you must always continue to live in the country." "No; though I feel sure I shall. But tell me of the great world. Have you been all over it?" "Not quite that; but I've seen the best and worst of it." "And which did you prefer?" "Neither, I think--I'm not an extremist." "Nor an enthusiast?" "That, of course. Life wouldn't be worth living without enthusiasm. It is a part of our youth. Don't you possess it?" "Yes," said Stella, very earnestly, "I'm sure I do. But mine has so little to feed on that I fear it may die of insufficient nutrition." "That seems a pity," said Humphreys, "when the world is so full of a number of foods for enthusiasm." "It is a pity," said Stella, quietly.