over the greenish blue of the lower sky, webs of crimson cirrhus spun
themselves. The stream ran fire; and far away the windows of a white farm
blazed. Lydia seized a spare sketching-block lying on the grass, and
began to note down a few "passages" in the sky before her.

Suddenly a gust came straying down the valley. It blew the press-cuttings
which had dropped from her lap toward the stream. One of them fell in,
the others, long flapping things, hung caught in a tuft of grass. Lydia
sprang up, with an exclamation of annoyance, and went to the rescue.
Dear, dear!--the longest and best notice, which spoke of her work as
"agreeable and scholarly, showing, at tunes, more than a touch of high
talent"--was quietly floating away. She must get it back. Her mother had
not yet read it--not yet purred over it. And it was most desirable she
should read it, so as to get rid thereby of any lingering doubt about the
horrid school and its horrid proposal.

But alack! the slip of newspaper was already out of reach, speeded by a
tiny eddy toward a miniature rapid in the middle of the beck. Lydia,
clinging with one hand to a stump of willow, caught up a stick lying on
the bank with the other, and, hanging over the stream, tried to head back
the truant. All that happened was that her foot slipping on a pebble went
flop into the shallow water, and part of her dress followed it.

It was not open to Lydia to swear, and she had no time for the usual
feminine exclamations before she heard a voice behind her.

"Allow me--can I be of any use?"

She turned in astonishment, extricating her wet foot, and clambered back
on to the bank. A young man stood there, civilly deferential. His bicycle