Page:Maud Howe - A Newport Aquarelle.djvu/176

 "I suppose you mean that for a compliment, Mr. Larkington, but, upon my word, I do not consider it such. I have never before been told that 'managing' was one of my characteristics."

"I did not mean that; you are perverse, but it does not matter. You look just as lovely when you play at being cross as when you are smiling. I wish you would always wear that wreath of oak leaves on your hat; it makes you look so much more like the girls at home, and so much less of a great lady."

Gladys did not quite understand this speech. How could she fancy that Larkington, moved by a real feeling, had half forgotten himself, and told her frankly what was in his mind? At the nutting parties in the village where he had grown up, the girls used all to wear these pretty chaplets on their uncovered heads, when they came home together, their tin pails filled with fruit, their hands stained with the juices of the nuts.

A look of surprise in the girl's face showed