Page:Cornelia Meigs--The windy hill.djvu/110

104 there were fewer dwellings, the wooded slope rising to the more open green of the orchard and then to the grassy declivity of the Windy Hill. As he neared the bridge he passed a long gray stone house with its gardens a glowing mass of color that came down to the water's very edge. This, he remembered, was the abode of Cousin Eleanor, and he laughed at himself as, even at this safe distance, he steered his course very cautiously along the opposite bank.

At the bridge he was obliged to turn, and run before the wind to make his way upstream again. He lay stretched out comfortably along the rail, paying little attention to the boat and thinking of many things. There was Cousin Jasper—how Oliver had misjudged him that day he thought of running away. His cousin had been tactless and stubborn, but the Cousin Eleanor affair had been well meant, after all.

"I'll never meet her, though. I won't give in," he declared, almost aloud, and realized, in a breath, that his persistence and Cousin Jasper's were both cut from the same piece.

"I'm sorry for him and I'll help him," he told himself, "and perhaps he will learn something about boys after a while."

And there was Anthony Crawford! He flushed again as he thought of the man's gleeful delight when he had caught him looking over the wall. What power could he have, and what was the disgrace of which he had spoken? The Beeman was