the butter never came. The roan cow disliked music and kicked over the
milk-pail with inartistic persistence. The sun on the hay made his head
ache.

As for a picturesque task for which he had no song--well, he had promised
Joan to keep away from the punt when the horn beneath the willow blew for
a ferryman. He had sculled the old white-haired minister into a rock
with delight to no one but Adam Craig, who had spent a whole evening
cackling about it. He must always remember that it had not been his
fault. The rock had merely scraped the punt while he was listening with
politeness to why the old man had "doubled up" his charge and had a
church on either side of the river. And if Mr. Abbott had not risen in
gentle alarm and begun to teeter around, Kenny in an interval of frantic
excitement would not have been forced to fish him out of the stream by
his coattails. He considered always that he saved the old man's life.
Nor had he meant to dab at him with the oar, thereby encouraging the
unfortunate old chap to duck and misinterpret his obvious intention to
save him.

But Joan had understood. That was the chief essential. Always Joan was
there upon the horizon of his day. Whatever he thought, whatever he did,
was colored by a passionate desire for the girl's approval. Her pleasure
became his delight; her smile his inspiration. In that, he told himself,
pleased to interpret all things here in the sylvan heart of solitude in
the terms of romance and mystery, he was like the chivalrous warrior of
old who found his true happiness in gallantly serving a beautiful maid.
Joan was surely such a type as chivalry conceived. She filled his Celtic
ideal and aroused all his gladness as a woman should. And she was as shy
and beautiful as a wild flower and as unspoiled. He blessed the old
gowns that quaintly framed her loveliness anew from day to day. But they