the half-sleeve.  They do not loose their hands; now he is laughing till his broad shoulders shake.  What is it?  What is it?  Can any one have followed him from Munich?  Fru Kaas could remain where she was no longer.  She went indoors and put down the glass; she was overcome by anxiety, filled with helpless anger.  It was some time before she could prevail on herself to go out and resume her walk.  The girl had turned her boat.  Now they are rowing in side by side, she as strongly as he.  Whenever Fru Kaas looked at her son he was laughing and the girl’s face was turned towards his.  Now they head for the landing-place at the parsonage.  Was it Helene?  The only girl for miles round, and Rafael had hooked himself on to her the very first day that he was at home.  These girls who can never see him without taking a fancy to him!  Now the boats are beached, not on the shingle, where the stones would be slippery.  No! on the sand, where they have run them up as high as possible.  Now she jumps lightly and quickly out of her boat, and he a little more heavily out of his; they grasp each other’s hands again.  Yes! there they were.

Fru Kaas turned away; she knew that for the moment she was nothing more than an old chattel pushed away into a corner.

It was Helene.  She knew that they had arrived and thought that she would row past the house; and thus it was that she had encountered Rafael, who had simply gone out to amuse himself.

As they had lain on their oars and the boats glided silently past each other, he thought to himself, “That girl never grew up here, she is cast in too fine a mould for that; she is not in harmony with the place.”  He saw a face whose regular lines, and large grey eyes, harmonised well with each other, a quiet wise face, across which all at once there flew a roguish look.  He knew it again.  It had done him good before to-day.  Our first thought in all recognitions, in all remembrances—­that is to say, if there is occasion for it—­is, has that which we recognise or recall done us good or evil?

This large mouth, those honest eyes, which have a roguish look just now, had always, done him good.

“Helene!” he cried, arresting the progress of his boat.

“Rafael!” she answered, blushing crimson and checking her boat too.

What a soft contralto voice!

When he came in to breakfast, beaming, ready to tell everything, he was confronted by two large eyes, which said as plainly as possible, “Am I put on one side already?” He became absolutely angry.  During breakfast she said, in a tone of indifference, that she was going to drive to the Dean’s, to thank him for the supervision which he had given to the estate during all these years.  He did not answer, from which she inferred that he did not wish to go with her.  It was some time before she started.  The harness was new, the stable-boy raw and untrained.  She saw nothing more of Rafael.

She was received at the parsonage with the greatest respect, and yet very heartily.  The Dean was a fine old man and thoroughly practical.  His wife was of profounder nature.  Both protested that the care of the estate had been no trouble to them, it had only been a pleasant employment; Helene had now undertaken it.