Pale, a little tremulous, but immaculate and jaunty in his white flannels and straw hat, he at last made his way downstairs.  To his great relief he found the sitting room empty, as he would have willingly deferred his formal acknowledgments to his hostess later.  A single glance at the interior determined him not to linger, and he slipped quietly into the open air and sunshine.  The day was warm and still, as the wind only came up with the going down of the sun, and the atmosphere was still redolent with the morning spicing of pine and hay and a stronger balm that seemed to fill his breast with sunshine.  He walked toward the nearest shade—­a cluster of young buckeyes—­and having with a certain civic fastidiousness flicked the dust from a stump with his handkerchief he sat down.  It was very quiet and calm.  The life and animation of early morning had already vanished from the hill, or seemed to be suspended with the sun in the sky.  He could see the ranchmen and oxen toiling on the green terraced slopes below, but no sound reached his ears.  Even the house he had just quitted seemed empty of life throughout its rambling length.  His seclusion was complete.  Could he stand it for three weeks?  Perhaps it need not be for so long; he was already stronger!  He foresaw that the ascetic Seth might become wearisome.  He had an intuition that Mrs. Rivers would be equally so; he should certainly quarrel with Melinda, and this would probably debar him from the company of the children—­his only hope.

But his seclusion was by no means so complete as he expected.  He presently was aware of a camp-meeting hymn hummed somewhat ostentatiously by a deep contralto voice, which he at once recognized as Melinda’s, and saw that severe virgin proceeding from the kitchen along the ridge until within a few paces of the buckeyes, when she stopped and, with her hand shading her eyes, apparently began to examine the distant fields.  She was a tall, robust girl, not without certain rustic attractions, of which she seemed fully conscious.  This latter weakness gave Mr. Hamlin a new idea.  He put up the penknife with which he had been paring his nails while wondering why his hands had become so thin, and awaited events.  She presently turned, approached the buckeyes, plucked a spike of the blossoms with great girlish lightness, and then apparently discovering Mr. Hamlin, started in deep concern and said with somewhat stentorian politeness:  “I beg your pardon—­didn’t know I was intruding!”

“Don’t mention it,” returned Jack promptly, but without moving.  “I saw you coming and was prepared; but generally—­as I have something the matter with my heart—­a sudden joy like this is dangerous.”

Somewhat mystified, but struggling between an expression of rigorous decorum and gratified vanity, Miss Melinda stammered, “I was only”—­

“I knew it—­I saw what you were doing,” interrupted Jack gravely, “only I wouldn’t do it if I were you.  You were looking at one of those young men down the hill.  You forgot that if you could see him he could see you looking too, and that would only make him conceited.  And a girl with your attractions don’t require that.”