“Dear me!  How methods change!  Our best photographer here is always so careful about every line of drapery, and just how you hold your chin I don’t see how you can just snap a person and be sure of an artistic result.”

“You can’t.  And perhaps you won’t like these at all.  But I will show you proofs to-morrow.  And if they are not right we’ll try again, if you are willing.”

Miss Austin went away, parasol held stiffly above her head, though the sun was behind her.  She was wondering, as she went, who the man was who had come to see Miss Ruston, and she arrived without much difficulty at the conclusion that he was probably going to marry her.  His speech about being in such haste to reach her that he couldn’t take time to go to a hotel and make himself neat seemed to her sure evidence that the two were upon a footing more intimate than that of mere friendship.

“If you are not too proud,” said Miss Ruston to Mr. Eugene Brant, “you may come into the kitchen and wash your hands and face.  Afterward you may stroll about my garden while I get supper.”

“I am not too proud to wash my face in your kitchen,” responded Mr. Brant, following her with alacrity, “but I shall not be willing to stroll about your garden while you get supper.  After supper, if you like, we will explore it to its mystic end down by the currant bushes I see from the window here.”

He accepted the basin of water Charlotte gave him, as gracefully as she presented it, dried his face upon the little towel she handed him, and declared himself much refreshed.  She did not apologize for the lack of a guest-room where he might remove the signs of dusty travel, nor did she allude to the absence within the house of most of the appliances considered necessary in these days for creature comfort.  But she dismissed him to the garden with a finality against which his pleadings to be allowed to be of use to her proved of no avail, and only when, after a half-hour, she appeared in the doorway with a pail, and approached the old well nearby, did he discover a chance to show his devotion.

“If you knew what fun I should consider it to be carrying plates and things around for you in there,” said he, as he drew the water for her, “you wouldn’t keep me out here.  What do you imagine I came a hundred miles out of my way for—­to study the possibilities of landscape gardening as applied to miniature estates like these of yours?”

“You might do much worse,” she responded promptly.  “I have spent not a little thought on just how much trimming to give my old shrubbery and how much to leave in a wild tangle.  Will you come in now and have supper?  We will take it with Granny in the front room.”

Mr. Brant was hungry, after his long drive, and he eyed with satisfaction the small table by the door, set out with fine old china and linen.  He consumed two juicy hot chops with keen relish, accompanied as they were by well-cooked rice.  A simple salad followed, and gave way to a dish of choice peaches, upon which his hostess poured plenty of rich cream.  She gave him also two cups of extremely good coffee, and he rose from the repast feeling content, though the fact that he had made a heartier meal than either of the ladies had not escaped him.