opposite hedge. Remarkable accident! She had not seen him!

In a moment Lewisham's legs were flying over the stile. He went down
the steps in the bank with such impetus that it carried him up into
the prickly bushes beside her. "Allow me," he said, too excited to see
she was not astonished.

"Mr. Lewisham!" she said in feigned surprise, and stood away to give
him room at the blackthorn.

"Which spike will you have?" he cried, overjoyed. "The whitest? The
highest? Any!"

"That piece," she chose haphazard, "with the black spike sticking out
from it."

A mass of snowy blossom it was against the April sky, and Lewisham,
straggling for it--it was by no means the most accessible--saw with
fantastic satisfaction a lengthy scratch flash white on his hand, and
turn to red.

"Higher up the lane," he said, descending triumphant and breathless,
"there is blackthorn.... This cannot compare for a moment...."

She laughed and looked at him as he stood there flushed, his eyes
triumphant, with an unpremeditated approval. In church, in the
gallery, with his face foreshortened, he had been effective in a way,
but this was different. "Show me," she said, though she knew this was
the only place for blackthorn for a mile in either direction.