Page:Far from the Maddening Girls.djvu/205

 view, this so alluring afternoon had tempted me more than once from the direct way, so that I had taken small notice of my actual progress, until, coming suddenly out upon the road again after my fourth or fifth deflection, I found myself almost opposite the Berrith house. Miss Susie Berrith, in a smart little walking costume, indescribably taking by reason of its brisk masculine note, was coming down the path. We were face to face before either could catch a breath. She would have passed me with a bow, but I stopped her.

“We seem to be going the same way,” said I, and after she had given me some little formal expression of acquiescence we fell in step.

“I don’t know what you will have been thinking of me,” I ventured to observe, and vastly envied the ease of her laugh as she replied:

“Are you sure I have been thinking of you at all?”

“Oh, Miss Berrith,” I exclaimed, “I think