A laugh, thinly disguised as a cough, escaped from Miss Carpenter.

"Young lady a-ketchin' cold, I'm afeerd," he said, with respectful
solicitude.

"Do you think the rain will last long?" said Agatha politely.

The man examined the sky with a weather-wise air for some moments. Then
he turned to Agatha, and replied humbly: "The Lord only knows, Miss. It
is not for a common man like me to say."

Silence ensued, during which Agatha, furtively scrutinizing the tenant
of the chalet, noticed that his face and neck were cleaner and less
sunburnt than those of the ordinary toilers of Lyvern. His hands
were hidden by large gardening gloves stained with coal dust. Lyvern
laborers, as a rule, had little objection to soil their hands; they
never wore gloves. Still, she thought, there was no reason why an
eccentric workman, insufferably talkative, and capable of an allusion to
the pen of the poet, should not indulge himself with cheap gloves. But
then the silk, silvermounted umbrella--

"The young lady's hi," he said suddenly, holding out the umbrella, "is
fixed on this here. I am well aware that it is not for the lowest of the
low to carry a gentleman's brolly, and I ask your ladyship's pardon
for the liberty. I come by it accidental-like, and should be glad of a
reasonable offer from any gentleman in want of a honest article."

As he spoke two gentlemen, much in want of the article, as their
clinging wet coats showed, ran through the gateway and made for the