u want to go into the arbour?"

"I want to kiss you.... The gardener can see us now; a moment ago he
was behind the Jerusalem artichokes."

"I hadn't noticed the gardener; I hadn't thought about him."

She had persuaded herself before she went into the arbour, and coming
out of the arbour she said:--

"I don't think father will raise any objection."

"But you will speak to him. Hello! we're forgetting the fish, and it
was the fish that brought all this about. Was it to bring this about
that they lived or are to be eaten to-night at dinner?"

"Ned, you take a strange pleasure in making life seem wicked."

"I'm sorry I've been so unsuccessful, but will you ask you father to
invite me, Ellen? and I'll try and make life seem nice--and the trout
will try too."

Ellen did not know whether she liked or disliked Ned's levity, but when
she looked at him an overpowering emotion clouded her comprehension and
she walked in silence, thinking of when he would kiss her again. At the
end of the walk she stopped to bind up a carnation that had fallen from
its stake.

"Father will be wondering what has become of us."

"I think," said Ned, and his own cowardice amused him, "I think you had
better tell your father yourself. You will tell him much better than I."

"And what will you do?" she said, turning suddenly and looking at him
with fervid eyes. "Will you wait here for me?"

"No, I will go home, and do you come and fetch me--and don't forget to
tell him I caught the trout and have earned an invitation to dinner."

His irresponsibility enchanted her in spite of herself--Ned had judged
the situation rightly when he said: "It is the circus aspiring to the
academy and the academy spying the circus." His epigram occurred to him
as he walked home and it amused him, and he thought of how unexpected
their lives would be, and he hummed beautiful music as he went along
the roads, Schumann's Lotus Flower and The Moonlight. Then he recalled
the beautiful duet, Siegmund's and Sieglinde's May Time, and turning
from sublimity suddenly into triviality he chanted the somewhat common
but expressive duet in Mireille, and the superficiality of its emotion
pleased him at the moment and he hummed it until he arrived at the
farm-house.

Mrs. Grattan could tell his coming from afar, for no one in the country
whistled so beautifully as Mr. Carmady, she said, "every note is clear
and distinct; and it does not matter how many there are in the tun