while so contentedly on the grass. HE wouldn't. He half resented it, and
then it occurred to him that this fine gentleman was like himself--shy.
Who could help being so before such an angel? HE would help him on.

And so, shyly at first, but bit by bit emboldened by a word or two from
Jack, he began to talk of her--of her beauty--of her kindness--of his
own unworthiness--of what she had said and done--until, finding in this
gracious stranger the vent his pent-up feelings so long had sought, he
sang then and there the little idyl of his boyish life. He told of his
decline in her affections after his unpardonable sin in keeping her
waiting while he went for the trout, and added the miserable mistake of
the rattlesnake episode. "For it was a mistake, Mr. Hamlin. I oughtn't
to have let a lady like that know anything about snakes--just because I
happen to know them."

"It WAS an awful slump, Lee," said Hamlin gravely. "Get a woman and
a snake together--and where are you? Think of Adam and Eve and the
serpent, you know."

"But it wasn't that way," said the boy earnestly. "And I want to tell
you something else that's just makin' me sick, Mr. Hamlin. You know I
told you William Henry lives down at the bottom of Burroughs's garden,
and how I showed Mrs. Burroughs his tricks! Well, only two days ago I
was down there looking for him, and couldn't find him anywhere. There's
a sort of narrow trail from the garden to the hill, a short cut up to
the Ridge, instead o' going by their gate. It's just the trail any one
would take in a hurry, or if they didn't want to be seen from the road.
Well! I was looking this way and that for William Henry, and whistlin'
for him, when I slipped on to the trail. There, in the middle of it, was
an old bucket turned upside down--just the thing a man would kick away