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“Well, I am not one bit sorry,” he said. “I’ll do another picture, and next time I’ll sketch the tree,” he added, his brown eyes twinkling with amusement.

“But how did you get up there, and how will you get down?” were his next queries, putting the little slipper into the pocket of his jacket.

“Well, I climbed up,” she admitted. “I suppose I’ll have to jump down. Reach out your hands,” she cried, and a sudden rustle showed she was preparing to spring. “Good gracious me!” was her next exclamation, as the willing hands were extended, “my hair is all caught.”

“Hold perfectly still till I get up there,” he said with concern, and replacing the stool, he was soon on a level with the fair prisoner.

Patiently he disentangled the long golden locks from the infringing boughs, and gathering them all in her little hands, she gave them a vigorous twist forward over her face out of further mischief.

“Now, my slipper, please,” as the young fellow retreated. Obediently restoring the truant article, she deftly adjusted it, and cried, “All ready!”

It is hardly to be wondered at that her descent was arrested, and her rounded form tenderly lowered to terra firma.

“I like this out here, don’t you?” was her next remark, shaking out her fairy muslin skirts and placidly surveying the scene. “I’ve been out every day these–let me see–yes, three days. Aunt Hepsy says I’ll get tanned, but I don’t mind. You know Aunt Hepsy, don’t you? Everybody does.”

“No, but I’d like to,” he said, and he meant it.

“She lives at the farm-house yonder–she and Uncle Reuben. They are the best old souls! So this is what you were doing,” she abruptly added, picking up the sketch. “You wouldn’t think I could draw, but I can,” with a proud little toss of the hair.

“I would think you could do anything,” he gallantly replied.

But she was intent upon the picture, with its bold, true outlines.

“This isn’t bad,” was her sage critcism.

“Didn’t you wear a hat, or something?” he asked, looking around and up into the tree.

“No–yes–I wore this,” and pulling from her pocket a large blue square of cotton, she tied it under her chin with the utmost naivete.

“It’s Aunt Hepsy’s,” she explained. “There, do you hear that bell? That’s for dinner,” and taking a tiny watch from an elf-like pocket, she added, “Only half-past eleven. But, to be sure, we ate breakfast with the chickens. It’s horrible.”

“Don’t you live here?”

“Live here?” she echoed. “No, I’m only visiting. Good-bye, I must go. I am much obliged, though,” and as if the recollection were overpowering, she again burst out into her ringing laugh.

“It was too funny you didn’t see me; and I so scared I was afraid to breathe. Good-bye, I hope you will have a good time with your picture.”

“But you are not going to dismiss me, are you? Mayn’t I take you home?”

“Yes, if you like; only you musn’t stay long. I’ve got to do Rollin and Plutarch while I’m out here, and can’t be bothered.”

With difficulty repressing an explosion, the young man walked beside the woodland sprite, with his goods and chattels thrown across his shoulders, and found himself falling–yes, tumbling–headlong in love. Such an airy, fairy, exquisite piece of humanity it had never been his fortune to behold.

“You are too young to worry your brain with dry old fossils like Rollin and Plutarch,” he said, with what gravity he could.

“I am a person of twenty,” she affirmed with demure satisfaction, as she tripped along in a manner quite enchanting.

At the door of the farm-house a fair, motherly face smiled a welcome from the border of a spotless cap, then sobered a little at the sight of a stranger.

“This is Aunt Hepsy,” simply said Daisy, “and you are–?” hesitating.

A flush not born of the sunshine mounted to his brow as with swift thought he saw the shoals ahead, and did not dare reveal his identity.