them disgusting in the house."

"Thank you," I said as she sat down and I took another Havana for the
one I had thrown away at her arrival. "Will you relate to me the
manner of your discovery? I would rather not read."

"About two weeks ago," she began, looking over the landscape, and not
at me, "I was sitting in the arbor below, and I heard Mrs.--well, a
lady coming whom, to be sincere with you, I dislike. If I stayed, I
knew she would have a long talk with me: if I walked on, she might
call me back. I looked about in haste for a hiding-place. The bushes
near me appeared as if I might get behind them: I pushed through, saw
a little path, which I followed, turned round the base of a hillock,
and found two rocks, upon which I raised myself with the help of a
sapling. Then, carefully parting the branches, I saw this," waving her
small hand that I might see it, but still not looking at me. "The sun
was just setting; away down in yonder field the sorrel was as fire in
its rays; a catbird was reciting a merry pastoral in the thicket
beyond; two goats stood high on a bank, like satyrs guarding the
place. You see why I come again."

"I have the right of discovery," I cried gayly: "I made the path and
placed the rocks. I claim it, that I may lay it at your feet."

"Do you like it?" she asked, turning to me and laying a slight stress
on "you."

"I told you I admired pretty things, and you know, Miss Blanche, I am
a bit of a poet."