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Her path wound through a thicket fragrant with syringa and southernwood; the faint perfume was reminiscent of Atlantic hillsides, where, long ago, a girl teacher, she had walked with the girl pupils of the Vermont academy, and kept them from the shy advances of the local swains. She smiled–a little sadly–as the thought occurred to her that after this interval of years it was again her business to restrain the callow affections. Should she never have the matchmaking instincts of her sex; never become the trusted confidante of youthful passion? Young Calton had not confessed his passion to HER, nor had Frida revealed her secret. Only the elder brother had appealed to her hard, practical common sense against such sentiment. Was there something in her manner that forbade it? She wondered if it was some uneasy consciousness of this quality which had impelled her to snub the elder Calton, and rebelled against it.

It was quite warm; she had been walking a little faster than her usual deliberate gait, and checked herself, halting in the warm breath of the syringas. Here she heard her name called in a voice that she recognized, but in tones so faint and subdued that it seemed to her part of her thoughts. She turned quickly and beheld Chris Calton a few feet from her, panting, partly from running and partly from some nervous embarrassment. His handsome but weak mouth was expanded in an apologetic smile; his blue eyes shone with a kind of youthful appeal so inconsistent with his long brown mustache and broad shoulders that she was divided between a laugh and serious concern.

“I saw you–go into the wood–but I lost you,” he said, breathing quickly, “and then when I did see you again–you were walking so fast I had to run after you. I wanted–to speak–to you–if you’ll let me. I won’t detain you–I can walk your way.”

Miss Trotter was a little softened, but not so much as to help him out with his explanation. She drew her neat skirts aside, and made way for him on the path beside her.

“You see,” he went on nervously, taking long strides to her shorter ones, and occasionally changing sides in his embarrassment, “my brother Jim has been talking to you about my engagement to Frida, and trying to put you against her and me. He said as much to me, and added you half promised to help him! But I didn’t believe him–Miss Trotter!–I know you wouldn’t do it–you haven’t got it in your heart to hurt a poor girl! He says he has every confidence in you–that you’re worth a dozen such girls as she is, and that I’m a big fool or I’d see it. I don’t say you’re not all he says, Miss Trotter; but I’m not such a fool as he thinks, for I know your GOODNESS too. I know how you tended me when I was ill, and how you sent Frida to comfort me. You know, too,–for you’re a woman yourself,–that all you could say, or anybody could, wouldn’t separate two people who loved each other.”

Miss Trotter for the first time felt embarrassed, and this made her a little angry. “I don’t think I gave your brother any right to speak for me or of me in this matter,” she said icily; “and if you are quite satisfied, as you say you are, of your own affection and Frida’s, I do not see why you should care for anybody’sinterference.”

“Now you are angry with me,” he said in a doleful voice which at any other time would have excited her mirth; “and I’ve just done it. Oh, Miss Trotter, don’t! Please forgive me! I didn’t mean to say your talk was no good. I didn’t mean to say you couldn’t help us. Please don’t be mad at me!”

He reached out his hand, grasped her slim fingers in his own, and pressed them, holding them and even arresting her passage. The act was without familiarity or boldness, and she felt that to snatch her hand away would be an imputation of that meaning, instead of the boyish impulse that prompted it. She gently withdrew her hand as if to continue her walk, and said, with a smile:–