message to the girl. As it happened, she was swinging on the
little sagging gate when he came up the lane, and at sight of him
her eyebrows shot up under her flaxen curls, which hung low upon
her forehead. She was a pretty, soulless little animal, coloured
like peach-blossoms, and with a great deal of that soft
insipidity which is usually found in a boy's ideal of maiden
innocence.

"Why, I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw you," she said,
arranging her curls over her left shoulder with a conscious
simper.

The old Blake gallantry rose to meet her challenging eyes, and he
regarded her smilingly a moment before he answered.

"Well, I could hardly believe mine, you know," he responded
carelessly. "I thought for an instant that a big butterfly had
alighted on the gate."

She pouted prettily.

"Won't you come in?" she asked after a moment, with an
embarrassed air, as she remembered that he was one of the "real
Blakes" for whom her father used to work.

A light retort was on his lips, but while he looked at her a
little weary frown darkened her shallow eyes, and with the
peculiar sympathy for all those oppressed by man or nature which
was but one expression of his many-sided temperament he quickly
changed the tone of his reply. At the instant it seemed to him