So Harold let her have her way, and felt an increase of self-respect, and that he was something more than a common day laborer, as he ate his steak and buttered toast, and drank the coffee, which seemed to him the best he had ever tasted.  Jerrie picked him a few strawberries, and laid beside his plate a beautiful half-opened rose, with the dew still upon it.  It was a delicate attention, and Harold felt it more than all she had done for him.

‘Thank you, Jerrie,’ he said, picking up the rose as he finished his breakfast.  ’It was so nice in you to think of it, just as if I were a king instead of a jack-at-all-trades, but I hardly think it suits my blue checked shirt and painty pants.  Keep it yourself, Jerrie,’ and he held it up against her white bib apron.  ’It is just like the pink on your cheeks.  Wear it for me,’ and taking a pin from his collar, he fastened it rather awkwardly to the bib, while his face came in so close proximity to Jerrie’s that he felt her breath stir his hair, and felt, too, a strong temptation to kiss the glowing cheek so near his own.  ‘There, that completes your costume,’ he said, holding her off a little to look at her.  ’By the way, haven’t you got yourself up uncommonly well this morning?  I never saw you as pretty as you are in this rig.  If it would not be very improper, I’d like to kiss you.’

He was astonished at his own boldness, and not at all surprised at Jerrie’s reply, as she stepped back from him.

’No, thank you, it would be highly improper for a man of twenty-six, who stands six feet in his boots, to kiss a girl of nineteen, who stands five feet six in her slippers.’

There was a flush on her cheeks and a strange look in her eyes, for she was thinking of Harvard, where he had put her from him, ashamed that strangers should see her kiss him.  Harold had forgotten that incident, which at the time had made no impression upon him, and was now thinking only of the beautiful girl whose presence seemed to brighten and ennoble everything with which she came in contact, and to whom he at last said good-bye, just as Peterkin’s tower clock struck for half-past five.’

‘I must go now,’ he said, taking up his basket of brushes.  ’I have lost a full half-hour with you, and your steaks, and your coddling me generally.  I ought to have been there by this time.  Good-bye,’ and offering her his hand, he started down the lane at a rapid pace, thinking the morning the loveliest he had ever known, and wondering why everything seemed so fresh, and bright, and sweet.

If he could have sung, he would have done so, but he could not, and so he talked to himself, and to the birds, and rabbits, and squirrels, which sprang up before him as he struck into the woods as the shortest route to Mr. Allen’s farm house—­talked to them and to himself of Jerrie, and how delightful it was to have her home again, unspoiled by flattery, sweet and gracious as ever, and how he longed to tell