Page:An orchard princess (IA orchardprincess00barbiala).pdf/33

 the face an expression of humor. For the rest, his short brown hair was a trifle wavy under his cloth cap, and his movements, so slow and deliberate as to almost seem lazy, could not disguise the muscular strength of the well-built body. So long he stared silently at the picture that at length she was moved to apology.

"It hasn't gone very well this morning," she said, hurriedly. "I—I am quite hopeless about it."

"Well!" He turned to her in genuine astonishment. "It seems fairly wonderful to me! It reminds me of"

"Of what?" she asked, smilingly, as he paused.

"Of—well, just a bit of verse I read somewhere." He hadn't quoted poetry since he was a school-boy, he thought, and the idea of doing so now