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 gratitude to the fate which was rewarding his care of his brother’s future with an interest like this. The adventuress?—the tobacconist’s assistant?—he could deal with her later.

Through the garden’s green a gleam of white guided—even, it seemed, beckoned.

He found the girl with the red hair and the honest eyes in a hammock swung between two cedars.

“Have pity on me,” he said abruptly.

She raised her eyes from her book.

“Oh, it’s you!” she said. “I am so glad. Get a chair from under the weeping ash, and sit down and talk.”

“This turf is good enough for me,” said he; “but are you sure I’m not trespassing?”

“You mean the advertisement? Oh, that was just because we had some rather awful people last year, and we couldn’t get away from them, and mother wanted to be quite safe; but, of course, you’re different. We like you very much, what we’ve seen of you.” This straightforward compliment somehow pleased him less than it might have done. “The other people were—well, he was a butterman. I believe he called himself an artist.”

“Do you mean that you do not like persons