you--pretend to be shocked and dreadfully angry, and all that--but
I haven't got time. And oh, John Wesley, I'm so delighted to see you
again! Let's go over to the park. Not but what I was dreadfully angry,
sure enough, until I had a second to think. Why don't you say you're
glad to see me--after five years?"

"Stella! You know I am. Six years, please. But I thought you were
still in Prescott?"

"We came here three years ago. Here's a bench. Now tell it to me!"

But Pringle stood beside and looked down at her without speech, with
a smile unexpected from a face so lean, so brown, so year-bitten and
iron-hard--a smile which happily changed that face, and softened it.

The girl's eyes danced at him.

"I'm so glad you've come, John Wesley! Good old Wes!"

"So I am--both those little things. Six years!" he said slowly. "Dear
me--dear both of us! That will make you twenty-five. You don't look a
day over twenty-four! But you're still Stella Vorhis?"

She met his gaze gravely; then her lids drooped and a wave of red
flushed her face.

"I am Stella Vorhis--yet."

"Meaning--for a little while yet?"