She had approached so noiselessly along the bank that bordered the
veranda, gliding from pillar to pillar as she paused before each to
search for some particular flower, that both men felt an uneasy
consciousness. But she betrayed no indication of their presence by
look or gesture. So absorbed and abstracted she seemed that, by a
common instinct, they both drew nearer the window, and silently
waited for her to pass or recognize them.

She halted a few paces off to fasten a flower in her girdle. A
small youthful figure, in a pale yellow dress, lacking even the
maturity of womanly outline. The full oval of her face, the
straight line of her back, a slight boyishness in the contour of
her hips, the infantine smallness of her sandaled feet and narrow
hands, were all suggestive of fresh, innocent, amiable youth--and
nothing more.

Forgetting himself, the elder man mischievously crushed his
companion against the wall in mock virtuous indignation. "Eh,
sir," he whispered, with an accent that broadened with his
feelings. "Eh, but look at the puir wee lassie! Will ye no be
ashamed o' yerself for putting the tricks of a Circe on sic a
honest gentle bairn? Why, man, you'll be seein' the sign of a limb
of Satan in a bit thing with the mother's milk not yet out of her!
She a flirt, speerin' at men, with that modest downcast air? I'm
ashamed of ye, Mister Raymond. She's only thinking of her
breakfast, puir thing, and not of yon callant. Another
sacrilegious word and I'll expose you to her. Have ye no pity on
youth and innocence?"

"Let me up," groaned Raymond, feebly, "and I'll tell you how old