w again. The scent of the jessamine came in as
before, but mingled with the cooler breath of the roses. There was
nothing intoxicating or unreal in it now; rather it seemed a gentle
aromatic stimulant--of thought. Long shadows of unseen poplars beyond
barred the garden lanes and alleys with bands of black and yellow. A
slanting pencil of sunshine through the trees was for a moment focussed
on a bed of waxen callas before a hedge of ceanothus, and struck into
dazzling relief the cold white chalices of the flowers and the vivid
shining green of their background. Presently it slid beyond to a tiny
fountain, before invisible, and wrought a blinding miracle out of its
flashing and leaping spray. Yet even as he gazed the fountain seemed to
vanish slowly, the sunbeam slipped on, and beyond it moved the shimmer
of white and yellow dresses. It was Yerba and Milly returning to the
house. Well, he would not interrupt his reflections by idly watching
them; he would, probably, see a great deal of Yerba that evening, and
by that time he would have come to some conclusion in regard to her.

But he had not taken into consideration her voice, which, always
musical in its Southern intonation and quite audible in the quiet
garden, struck him now as being full of joyous sweetness. Well, she
was certainly very happy--or very thoughtless. She was actually
romping with Milly, and was now evidently being chased down the
rose-alley by that volatile young woman. Then these swift Camillas
apparently neared the house, there was the rapid rustle of skirts, the
skurrying of little feet on the veranda, a stumble, a mouse-like shriek
from Milly, and HER voice, exhausted, dying, happy, broken with
half-hushed laughter, rose to him on the breath of the jessamine and
rose.

Surely she WAS a child, and, if a child, how he had misjudged her! What
if all that he had believed was mature deliberation was only the
innocent imaginings of a romantic girl, all that he had taken seriously
only a school-girl's foolish dream! Instead of combating it, instead
of reasoning with her, instead of trying to interest her in other
things, he had even helped on her illusions. He had treated her as if
the taint of her mother's worldliness and knowledge of evil was in her
pure young flesh. He had recognized her as the daughter of an
adventuress, and not as his ward, appealing to his chivalry through her
very ignorance--it might be her very childish vanity. He had