A youth came walking down the road beyond the fence.  Some distance off, he caught sight of the girl, and watched her critically as he came up.

“This must be the one they spoke of,” he said to himself.  “The girl that’s proud beyond winning!”

The girl’s slender figure straightened as she rose from her stooping position, and threw back the plaited hair that had fallen forward over one shoulder; she bowed her head in demure self-consciousness.

“She’s all they say, by her looks,” thought the youth, and slackened his steps involuntarily as he passed.

The girl watched him covertly.  “So that’s the one they’ve all been talking about,” she said to herself.  “The one that’s not like any of the rest.”

She bent down to fill her can.

“Shall I speak to her?” the young man asked himself.

“But suppose she’ll have nothing to do with you?”

“H’m.  ’Twould be the first that ever took it so!” And he smiled.

The girl bent over her work again; the young man came nearer.

“I wonder if he’ll have the impudence to speak to me,” she thought.  “’Twould be like him, from what they say.  But let him try it with me...!”

“Like to like’s the best way, I doubt,” said the youth to himself.  “If she’s so proud, I’d better be the same.”  And he walked by resolutely, without so much as a glance at her, after all.

“Ho!” The girl spilled some of the water with a splash to one side.  “So that’s his way, is it?”

She cast a look of displeasure at him as he passed down the road—­to go by like that without a word was almost a greater offence than if he had spoken.

* * * * *

Next evening she was there again.

And this time he stopped.

“Good evening,” he said, raising his hat with rather more of pride than courtesy.

“Good evening.”  She flung the words at him over her shoulder, turning her head but just so much as to show the corner of an eye.

Silence.

“What lovely roses!”

The speech was pleasant enough in itself, almost a compliment.  But there was a challenge in the words—­as the speaker himself was aware.

“They’re well enough,” she answered carelessly, as if to imply that she had no more to say—­he could go on if he cared to.

“I wonder, now, if you’d give me one—­one of the red ones yonder—­if it’s not too much to ask?”

The girl drew herself up. “’Tis not our way at Moisio to give roses over the fence to strangers—­though there may be those elsewhere that are willing enough.”

“Though there may be those elsewhere....”  The young man flushed.  He understood what was in her mind—­the tone of her voice was enough.  He had expected something of this at their first encounter, but for all that he was startled at the fierce resolution in her opening thrust.

“’Tis not my way to beg for roses over every fence,” he answered proudly.  “Nor to ask a thing twice of anyone.  Good-night!”