e quiet homeward
paths, it shamed me to remember with what hard words we had parted.

II

The sun was going down as I conquered the last steep rise toward my
grandfather's gate. Hereabouts a pair of steps had been cut into the
cliff and a hand-rail erected to help the visitor against the wind,
coming, as it so often did, in flaws of extraordinary force and fury
around the headland. From this high point a great expanse of ocean
filled the eye, and the ceaseless, uneasy rumor of water assailed one
even in the fairest weather. There was always a thin run of surf about
the base of the Brown Cow and among those narrow conical rocks which,
set in a rough crescent near the lower end of the Cat's Mouth, had not
inaptly been named the Cat's Teeth.

[Illustration: "'YOU DIDN'T SEE THE SIGN, I SUPPOSE?'"]

The path followed the edge of the cliff on the hither side of a stone
wall, behind which some few experienced old apple-trees bent and
flattened themselves into strange, tortuous shapes to escape the winds.
The inclosure went by the name of orchard, though it was in truth little
else than a wild jungle of weeds and rubbish; but one tree in the most
sheltered corner yearly made a conscientious effort to supply us with a
bushel or so of pippins, and adventurous Chepstow urchins as regularly
defeated the hope. I purposed to shorten my road by crossing here; and
so, finding a toe-rest in certain familiar crannies of the masonry,
clambered easily to the top of the wall, and paused there a moment,
astride of the coping, to put aside the branches and take a distant view
of the forlorn pile of ruins I called home. It was a dreary place; its
roofs sagged, its chimneys leaned at perilous slants. Yet my heart
warmed to the sight of it. I took hold of the stoutest bough to swing me
to the ground, when----

"Don't touch those apples, young man!" said somebody sharply.

I was so startled as nearly to lose my hold, and came down with a run
and hands well scored on the rough bark. There I stood, knee-high in
rank undergrowth, staring all about in a surprise that must have been
not a little ludicrous, for the voice uttered a short cicada-chirrup of
laughter, shrill and sweet.

"Here I am. What bats men are!" it said.

I looked. She was standing almost immediately beneath the place where I
had climbed over; my boot must have grazed her. She was what old women
call a slip of a girl, in a cotton gown, white, figured with fine sprigs
of