“A farmer,” said a sleepy voice behind the rosebush.

Miss Naylor leaped.  “Greta!  How you startled me!  A farmer—­that is —­an—­an agriculturalist!”

“A farmer with vineyards—­he told us, and he is not ashamed.  Why is it a pity, Miss Naylor?”

Miss Naylor’s lips looked very thin.

“For many reasons, of which you know nothing.”

“That is what you always say,” pursued the sleepy voice; “and that is why, when I am to be married, there shall also be a pity.”

“Greta!” Miss Naylor cried, “it is not proper for a girl of your age to talk like that.”

“Why?” said Greta.  “Because it is the truth?”

Miss Naylor made no reply to this, but vexedly cut off a sound rose, which she hastily picked up and regarded with contrition.  Greta spoke again: 

“Chris said:  ‘I have got the pictures, I shall tell her’; but I shall tell you instead, because it was I that told the story.”

Miss Naylor stared, wrinkling her nose, and holding the scissors wide apart....

“Last night,” said Greta slowly, “I and Chris went to his studio and took his pictures, and so, because the gate was shut, I came back to tell it; and when you asked me where Chris was, I told it; because she was in the studio all night, and I and Scruff sat up all night, and in the morning we brought the pictures, and hid them under our beds, and that is why—­we—­are—­so—­sleepy.”

Over the rose-bush Miss Naylor peered down at her; and though she was obliged to stand on tiptoe this did not altogether destroy her dignity.

“I am surprised at you, Greta; I am surprised at Christian, more surprised at Christian.  The world seems upside down.”

Greta, a sunbeam entangled in her hair, regarded her with inscrutable, innocent eyes.

“When you were a girl, I think you would be sure to be in love,” she murmured drowsily.

Miss Naylor, flushing deeply, snipped off a particularly healthy bud.

“And so, because you are not married, I think—­”

The scissors hissed.

Greta nestled down again.  “I think it is wicked to cut off all the good buds,” she said, and shut her eyes.

Miss Naylor continued to peer across the rosebush; but her thin face, close to the glistening leaves, had become oddly soft, pink, and girlish.  At a deeper breath from Greta, the little lady put down her basket, and began to pace the lawn, followed dubiously by Scruff.  It was thus that Christian came on them.

Miss Naylor slipped her arm into the girl’s and though she made no sound, her lips kept opening and shutting, like the beak of a bird contemplating a worm.

Christian spoke first: 

“Miss Naylor, I want to tell you please—­”

“Oh, my dear!  I know; Greta has been in the confessional before you.”  She gave the girl’s arm a squeeze.  “Isn’t it a lovely day?  Did you ever see ‘Five Fingers’ look so beautiful?” And she pointed to the great peaks of the Funffingerspitze glittering in the sun like giant crystals.