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It was on a splendid morning in July that as she splashed along the marshy edge of a stream in hot pursuit of one of the biggest otters she had ever seen, a well-known voice accosted her by name.

“Hullo, Nan! I wondered if you would turn up when they told me you were still at home.”

Nan whisked round, up to her ankles in mud.

“Hullo, Jerry, it’s you, is it?” was her unceremonious reply. “Pleased to see you, my boy. But don’t talk to me now. I can’t think of anything but business.”

She was off with the words, not waiting to shake hands. But Jerry Lister was not in the least discouraged by this treatment. He was accustomed to Nan and all her ways.

He pounded after her along the bank and joined her as a matter of course. A straight, good-looking youth was Jerry, as wild and headstrong as Nan herself. He was the grand-nephew of old Squire Grimshaw, Colonel Everard’s special crony, and he and Nan had been chums from their childhood. He was only a year older than she, and in many respects he was her junior. “I say, you are all right again?” was his first question, when the otter allowed them a little breathing-space. “I was awfully sorry to hear about your accident, you know, but awfully glad, too, in a way. By Jove, I don’t think I could have spent the Long here, with you in South Africa! What ever possessed you to go and marry a Boer, Nan?”

“Don’t be an idiot!” said Nan sharply. “He isn’t anything of the sort.”

Jerry accepted the correction with a boyish grimace.

“I’m coming to call on you to-morrow, Mrs. Cradock,” he announced.

Nan coloured angrily.

“You needn’t trouble yourself,” she returned. “I don’t receive callers.”

But Jerry was not to be shaken off. He linked an affectionate arm in hers.

“All right, Nan old girl, don’t be waxy,” he pleaded. “Come on the lake with me this afternoon instead. I’ll bring some prog if you will, and we’ll have one of our old red-letter days. Is it a promise?”

She hesitated, still half inclined to be ungracious.

“Well,” she said at length, moved in spite of herself by his persuasive attitude, “I will come to please you, on one condition.”

“Good!” ejaculated Jerry. “It’s done, whatever it is.”

“Don’t be absurd!” she protested, trying to be stern and failing somewhat ignominiously. “I will come only if you will promise not to talk about anything that you see I don’t like.”

“Bless your heart,” said Jerry, lifting her fingertips to his lips, “I won’t utter a syllable, good or bad, without your express permission. You’ll come, then?”

“Yes, I’ll come,” she said, allowing the smile that would not be suppressed. “But if you don’t make it very nice, I shall never come again.”

“All right,” said Jerry cheerily. “I’ll bring my banjo. You always like that. Come early, like a saint. I’ll be at the boat-house at eleven.”

He was; and Nan was not long after. The lake stretched for about a mile in the squire’s park, and many were the happy hours that they had spent upon it.

It was a day of perfect summer, and they drifted through it in sublime enjoyment. Jerry soon discovered that the girl’s marriage and anything remotely connected with it were subjects to be avoided, and as he had no great wish himself to investigate in that direction he found small difficulty in confining himself to more familiar ground. Without effort they resumed the old friendly intercourse that the girl’s rash step had threatened to cut short, and long before the end of the afternoon they were as intimate as they had ever been.

“You mustn’t go in yet,” insisted Jerry, when a distant clock struck seven. “Wait another couple of hours. There’s plenty of food left. And the moonrise will be grand to-night.”

Nan did not need much persuading. She had always loved the lake, and Jerry’s society was generally congenial. He had, moreover, been taking special pains to please her, and she was quite willing to be pleased.