d themselves
with catching locusts; Baby and Nell gathered wild flowers. Meg
knelt down to collect the spoons and forks: and put the untouched
food back into the baskets away from the ants.

"I will do this--you look hot, Miss Meg; sit down quietly," Mr.
Gillet said.

"Thank you, but I prefer to do it myself," Miss Meg said, with
freezing dignity.

She did not look at him, but there was a certain tightness about
her lips that made him know the light in her clear young, eyes was
a scornful one.

He did not offer again, but sat and watched her pack up the things
with an untranslatable look on his face. When she had almost
finished he took something out of his pocket.

"I have to give you this again," he said, and handed her the blue
length of ribbon, folded smoothly, but showing the crease where it
had been tied.

She took it without lifting her eyes, crushed it up in her hand, and
slipped it into her pocket.

"I had almost hoped you would say I might keep it, in spite of
everything," he said, "just as a talisman against the future, but
your lips are too severe, Miss for me to cherish the hope longer."

"It would be as useless as it has been," she said stiffly. Her
hands moved nervously, however, and she wrapped up the remains of
a duck and a jam tart together.

"Then I am not to have another chance?" he said.

"It would be no use," Meg repeated, gathering up bananas and oranges
with a heightened colour.

He does not realize how wicked he has been, he thinks he ought to be
forgiven at once was her thought.

He emptied the billy slowly on the ground, he put on its blackened lid
and tied the newspaper around it. Then he looked at her again,
and the way her soft hair fell on her forehead made him think
of his young dead sister.

"I BEG you to give it to me again, little Miss Meg," he said.

Meg's heart and head had a rapid battle; the former was tender
and charitable, and bade her take the little ribbon and give it to
him instantly; the latter said he had sinned greatly, and she must
show him her disapproval by her manner, even if she yielded what he
asked her in the end. The head won.

"My influence is evidently useless--that bit of ribbon would make
no difference in the future," she said very coldly.

He leaned back against the tree and yawned, as if the subject had no
more interest for him.

"Ah well," he said, "I dare say you are right." Meg felt a little
taken down.

"Of course, if you r