The thing we desire most is often the thing that brings us woe.

The Baby caught sight of Helen practising her beautiful attitudes.  He hung on to a rail of the verandah, and gazed and gazed.  Then he took his life in his hand, as it were, and swung himself up on the verandah; he moved like a cat, for he supposed that the stalwart Johns was within.  From this better point of view, peeping about, he now surveyed the whole interior of the small drawing-room.  What was his joy to find that there was no family circle of spectators; Helen was exercising herself alone!  He hugged to himself the idea that the gracious little spectacle was all his own.

Now, as it happened, the Baby in his secret hauntings of this house had not been so entirely unseen as he supposed.  Certainly Johns had never caught sight of him or he would have been made aware of it, but Helen, since the night of the boating mystery, had more than once caught sight of a white figure passing among the maple shadows.  These glimpses had added point and colour to all the mystical fancies that clustered round the helmsman of the yacht.  She hardly believed that some guardian spirit was protecting her in visible semblance, or that some human Prince Charming, more kingly and wise than any man that she had yet seen, had chosen this peculiar mode of courting her; but her wish was the father of thoughts that fluttered between these two explanations, and hope was fed by the conviction that no man who could see her every day if he chose would behave in this romantic manner.

So upon this evening it happened that when Helen, poised upon her toes and beating the time of imaginary music with her waving hand, caught sight of the Baby’s white flannels through the dark window pane, she recognised the figure of her dreams and, having long ago made up her mind what to do when she had the chance, she ran to the French window without an instant’s delay, and let herself out of it with graceful speed.

The Baby, panic-stricken, felt but one desire, that she might never know who had played the spy.  He threw himself over the verandah rail with an acrobat’s skill, and with head in front and nimble feet he darted off under the maple trees:  but he had to reckon with an agile maiden.  Helen had grown tired of a fruitless dream.  A crescent moon gave her enough light to pursue; lights of friendly houses on all sides assured her of safety.

Over the log fence into the pasture vaulted the Baby, convinced now that he had escaped.  Vain thought!  He had not considered the new education.  Over the fence vaulted Helen as lightly:  in a minute the Baby heard her on his track.

The cow and the horse had never before seen so pretty a chase.  There was excitement in the air and they sniffed it; they were both young and they began to run too.  The sound of heavy galloping filled the place.

Of the two sides of the field which lay farthest from the house, one looked straight over to the glaring Syndicate windows, and one to the rugged bank that rose from the shore.  The Baby’s one mad desire was to conceal his identity.  He made for the dark shore.  Another fence, he thought, or the rocks of the bank, would surely deter her flying feet.