your grandfather. How odd that we should be neighbors! Why have
we never met before?"

"If you had told me you knew my grandfather when you appeared in
the garden, I should not have been in the least surprised," I
answered rather irrelevantly. "I really thought you were the ghost
of the old fountain. How in the world did you come there at that
hour?"

"We were a large party and we went out for a walk. Then we thought
we should like to see what your park was like in the moonlight, and
so we trespassed. I got separated from the rest, and came upon you
by accident, just as I was admiring the extremely ghostly look of
your house, and wondering whether anybody would ever come and live
there again. It looks like the castle of Macbeth, or a scene from
the opera. Do you know anybody here?"

"Hardly a soul! Do you?"

"No. Aunt Bluebell said it was our duty to come. It is easy for
her to go out; she does not bear the burden of the conversation."

"I am sorry you find it a burden," said I. "Shall I go away?"

Miss Lammas looked at me with a sudden gravity in her beautiful
eyes, and there was a sort of hesitation about the lines of her
full, soft mouth.

"No," she said at last, quite simply, "don't go away. We may like
each other, if you stay a little longer--and we ought to, because