"But that's just what he is!" Clementina told how the Russian had
lectured her, and wished her to go back to the country and work in the
fields.

"Oh, if that's all!" cried Miss Milray. I was afraid it was another kind
of earnestness: the kind I shouldn't like if I were you."

"There's no danger of that, I guess." Clementina laughed, and Miss Milray
went on:

"Another of your admirers was here; but he was not so inconsolable, or
else be found consolation in staying on and talking about you, or
joking."

"Oh, yes; Mr. Hinkle," cried Clementina with the smile that the thought
of him always brought. He's lovely."

"Lovely? Well, I don't know why it isn't the word. It suits him a great
deal better than some insipid girls that people give it to. Yes, I could
really fall in love with Mr. Hinkle. He's the only man I ever saw who
would know how to break the fall!"

It was lunch-time before their talk had begun to run low, and it swelled
again over the meal. Miss Milray returned to Mrs. Lander, and she made
Clementina confess that she was a little trying sometimes. But she
insisted that she was always good, and in remorse she went away as soon
as Miss Milray rose from table.

She found Mrs. Lander very much better, and willing to have had her stay
the whole afternoon with Miss Milray. "I don't want she should have