And it was out on this veranda that Quarren stepped in the wake of Strelsa's maid, and from there he caught his first view of Strelsa's garden, and of Strelsa herself, fully armed and caparisoned for the perennial fray with old Dame Nature. "You need not go down there to announce me," he said; "I'll speak to Mrs. Leeds myself." But before he could move, Strelsa, happening to turn around, saw him on the veranda, gazed at him incredulously for a moment, then brandished her trowel with a clear, distant cry of greeting, and came toward him, laughing in her excitement and surprise. They met midway, and she whipped off her glove and gave him her hand in a firm, cool clasp. "Why the dickens didn't you wire!" she said. "You're a fraud, Rix! I might easily have been away!--You might have missed me--we might have missed each other.... Is _that_ all you care about seeing me?--after all these weeks!" "I wanted to surprise you," he explained feebly. "Well, you didn't! That is--not much. I'd been thinking of you--and I glanced up and saw you. You're stopping at Molly's I suppose." "Yes." "When did you arrive?" "L-last night," he admitted. "What! And didn't call me up! I refuse to believe it of you!" She really seemed indignant, and he followed her into the pretty house where presently she became slightly mollified by his exuberant admiration of the place. "Are you in earnest?" she said. "Do you really think it so pretty? If you do I'll take you upstairs and show you my room, and the three beautiful spick and span guest rooms. But _you'll_ never occupy one!" she added, still wrathful at his apparent neglect of her. "I don't want anybody here who isn't perfectly devoted to me. And it's very plain that you are not." He mildly insisted that he was but she denied it, hotly. "And I shall _never_ get over it," she added. "But you may come upstairs and see what you have missed." They went over the renovated house thoroughly; she, secretly enchanted at his admiration and praise of everything, pointed out any object that seemed to have escaped his attention merely to hear him approve it. Finally she relented. "You _are_ satisfactory," she said as they returned to the front veranda and seated themselves. "And really, Rix, I'm so terribly glad to see you that I forgive your neglect.... Are you well? You don't look very well," she added earnestly. "Why are you so white?" [Illustration: "'I wanted to surprise you,' he explained feebly."] "I'm in fine shape, thank you." "I didn't mean your figure," she laughed--"Oh, that _was_ a common kind of a joke, wasn't it? But I'm only a farmer, Rix. You must expect the ruder and simpler forms of speech from a lady of the woodshed!... Why are you so pale?" "Do I seem particularly underdone?" "That's horrid, too. Are you and I going to degenerate just because you work for a living? You _are_ unusually thin, anyway; and the New York pallor is very noticeable. Will you stay and get sun-burnt?"