“Only there are no flowers here,” she added. Then seeing Craig she stopped suddenly and said, “I beg your pardon; I didn’t know any one was here.” She was tall and slender, with a willowy grace in every motion. Her complexion was pale, but betokened perfect health and vitality. Her light brown hair was twisted into a flat knot low in her neck where it was making frantic efforts to escape in little wisps of curls. Her eyes were large and blue and clear as a child’s. Her mouth was rather wide, but very sweet in its expression when she smiled. Her dress was a simple muslin of lavender and white, and at her throat and belt she wore a half-opened lily which she had gathered on the river and which seemed to harmonize so well with her pure complexion and general appearance. Some such idea was in Craig’s mind as he rose quickly and said to her, “You are not intruding at all. I come here because it is so quiet and I like the outlook across the fields to the woods, but I have no right to monopolize the place. Be seated, won’t you?” He brought her a chair, but took the precaution to put it at a safe distance from his own and where he could see her squarely. He had been thinking only of Helen, expecting her and waiting for her. This was she, of course, and her simple, unaffected manner was her premonitory artillery against which she would find him proof. She was very pretty, but he was not sure that he hadn’t seen faces prettier than hers, and on the whole he was a little disappointed to find her less formidable than he had expected. All this passed through his mind while Alice was thanking him for the chair in which she seated herself, with half of her new boots showing under the hem of her dress. Craig saw them and thought them very small and well fitting and that she was displaying them on purpose. “Do you think you will like it here?” he asked, feeling he must say something. “Oh, yes,” she answered enthusiastically. “I like the country, and it is so delightfully cool after the heat of yesterday. Do you know I have a great desire to roll in that new mown hay which smells so sweet. I believe I am something of a romp.” Craig did not know what to say to this, so he spoke of the lilies which Alice was wearing. “I see you like them, too; they are my favorites,” he said, “and I always buy one of Jeff. He hasn’t been round yet. I wonder what keeps him.” “Pray take this. I have more,” Alice said, offering him the lily which was in her belt, without a thought that she might seem too familiar, until she saw something like surprise on Craig’s face which brought a blush to her own.