“Well, if you have anything to say to me,” she continued, hastening on, “you can proceed as we go along, for I cannot linger.  I was not aware of its being so late, until you aroused me.”

“There, I did not think of that,” he added; “Susan will miss me, and, beside, some one might have been watching me follow you.”

“Did you follow me?” questioned Clemence, thrown, for the moment, completely off her guard.

“Of course,” he replied, studying her face intently; “how else did you suppose I could find you in that hiding-place?”

“I was not aware that a hard-working farmer was given to such school-boy tricks,” she said again, in tones of marked displeasure.  “If you wished to recall me, one of the children would have done the errand equally as well.”

He laughed sarcastically.  “All very proper and correct, Miss Graystone.  Perhaps I did run the risk of discovery, in my anxiety to find you, but one cannot be always upon their guard and remember everything.  You are a ’cute one, now, with that artless face.  I studied for weeks before I really made up my mind whether it was real or only put on for the occasion.”

“Did you ever observe me before?” asked Clemence as cooly as possible, resolved to cultivate obtuseness, and not apply his words personally, “I suppose, now, in a quiet place like this, any stranger is subjected to the comments and surmises of nearly all the inhabitants.  By the way, how many do you suppose the place numbers?”

“Really, I don’t know,” he answered dryly, “never having the curiosity to inquire.  Perhaps the Editor could tell you.  Suppose you ask him, when you meet again, as you seem to be tolerably well acquainted.”

“Oh, I don’t care so much as that about it,” said Clemence, indifferently, “and I am not sufficiently well acquainted with the gentleman in question, to catechise him in any way.”

“Then you were not writing those verses to him, that I saw you put away when I spoke to you?”

The red blood flashed indignantly into Clemence’s cheeks, at this impertinence, but she had a motive in checking any manifestations of her fear and anger, so she answered lightly: 

“Of course not, it was merely for my own amusement.”

“Ah, what an agreeable thing,” he said, after a moment, “to have such resources of pleasure.  How you must despise an ignorant fellow like me.”

“There, you wrong me,” she said generously, “I am incapable of such littleness.  Here, in America, where so many of our most distinguished men have come from contact with the field or workshop, it would be folly in me to despise any one on account of their calling.”

“But I have thought it mean, and my whole life has grown distasteful since I met you,” he said, turning suddenly and confronting her.

They were in a tangled pathway, overgrown with clinging vines, that interlaced themselves above and upon every side.  It was impossible to proceed with this man directly in her way, so she could only stand immovably, trying to repress all feeling of apprehension.