“I wonder if it would be possible for you to come up here for a day or two after your visit to your parents is ended.  I’d adore it.  You’d probably hate it.  Such food!  Such beds!  Such people!  But—­could you—­would you come—­just to walk in the heavenly green with me?  I wonder.

“And, Louis, I’d row you about on the majestic expanse of the stump-pond, and we’d listen to the frogs.  Can you desire anything more romantic?

“The trouble with you is that you’re romantic only on canvas.  Anyway, I can’t stir you to sentiment.  Can I?  True, I never tried.  But if you come here, and conditions are favourable, and you are so inclined, and I am feeling lonely, nobody can tell what might happen in a flat scow on the stump-pond.

“To be serious for a moment, Louis, I’d really love to have you come.  You know I never before saw the real country; I’m a novice in the woods and fields, and, somehow, I’d like to have you share my novitiate in this—­as you did when I first came to you.  It is a curious feeling I have about anything new; I wish you to experience it with me.

“Rita is awake and exploring the box of Maillard’s which is about empty.  Be a Samaritan and send me some assorted chocolates.  Be a god, and send me something to read—­anything, please, from Jacobs to James.  There’s latitude for you.  Be a man, and send me yourself.  You have no idea how welcome you’d be.  The chances are that I’d seize you and embrace you.  But if you’re willing to run that risk, take your courage in both hands and come.

“Your friend,

“VALERIE WEST.”

The second week of her sojourn she caught a small pickerel—­the only fish she had ever caught in all her life.  And she tearfully begged the yokel who was rowing her to replace the fish in its native element.  But it was too late; and she and Rita ate her victim, sadly, for dinner.

At the end of the week an enormous box of bonbons came for her.  Neither she nor Rita were very well next day, but a letter from Neville did wonders to restore abused digestion.

Other letters, at intervals, cheered her immensely, as did baskets of fruit and boxes of chocolates and a huge case of books of all kinds.

“Never,” she said to Rita, “did I ever hear of such an angel as Louis Neville.  When he comes the first of August I wish you to keep tight hold of me, because, if he flees my demonstrations, I feel quite equal to running him down.”

But, curiously enough, it was a rather silent and subdued young girl in white who offered Neville a shy and sun-tanned hand as he descended from the train and came forward, straw hat under one arm, to greet her.

“How well you look!” he exclaimed, laughingly; “I never saw such a flawless specimen of healthy perfection!”

[Illustration:  “‘How well you look!’ he exclaimed”]

“Oh, I know I look like a milk-maid, Kelly; I’ve behaved like one, too.  Did you ever see such a skin?  Do you suppose this sun-burn will ever come off?”