'Wallace and I went off after the nut-hatches, enjoying a private laugh
by the way over Mrs. Stuart's little look of amazement and discomfort as
Miss Bretherton delivered herself. When we came back we found Forbes
sketching her--she sitting rather flushed and silent under the tree, and
he drawing away and working himself at every stroke into a greater and
greater enthusiasm. And certainly she was as beautiful as a dream,
sitting against that tree, with the brown heather about her and the young
oak-leaves overhead. But I returned in an antagonistic frame of mind, a
little out of patience with her and her beauty, and wondering why Nature
always blunders somewhere!

'However, on the way home she had another and a pleasanter surprise for
me. A carriage was waiting for us on the main road, and we strolled
towards it through the gorse and the trees and the rich level evening
lights. I dropped behind for some primroses still lingering in bloom
beside a little brook; she stayed too, and we were together, out of
ear-shot of the rest.

'"Mr. Kendal," she said, looking straight at me, as I handed the flowers
to her, "you may have misunderstood something just now. I don't want to
pretend to what I haven't got. I don't know French, and I can't read
French novels if I wished to ever so much."

'What was I to say? She stood looking at me seriously, a little proudly,
having eased her conscience, as it seemed to me, at some cost to herself.
I felt at first inclined to turn the thing off with a jest, but suddenly
I thought to myself that I too would speak my mind.

'"Well," I said deliberately, walking on beside her; "you lose a good