the gap and over the
meadow. I go to the right."

"Ah, but I am not going to Buck Hill this evening. I came back to
Ryeville only to see you. I told you, my beauty, that I was going to.
Don't you remember?"

"I am not your beauty and I do not remember."

"Well, I did and I have and you are."

"Maybe you have but I am not. I bid you good evening, Mr. Harbison.
Give me my basket."

"No, no! Not so fast! You don't understand, my dearest girl. I really
have come up here to see you and a fellow doesn't take that beastly
ride twice in one day without some reward. Come on, like the peach
that you resemble, and sit down here in this grove of trees with me. I
tell you, honey, I'm loving you good and right."

"Nonsense! You don't know me and besides I have no time to sit down
as I have two more trolley cars to meet with hot suppers for the
motormen. Give me my basket! I must hurry home. I cannot let my
customers go hungry."

"But I am hungry for love," cried Tom, seizing the hand Judith had
stretched out for her basket. In the other hand she carried the empty
milk can. Up to this time the girl had been half laughing. She was
evidently amused by the gallantries of Tom and had met his advances
with badinage, thinking he was in jest. However, when he grasped her
hand and attempted to draw her towards him, she grew angry.

"Let me go, Mr. Harbison. You are forgetting yourself."

"I am not forgetting myself. I am just remembering myself. Here I have
been in the same neighborhood with you for days and never once have I
had so much as a kiss. Please! Please!" He caught the resisting Judith
to him.

Tom was making a fool of himself and no doubt he would have realized
it had he known that another man was hearing his pleading. Jeff on the
other hand was so conscious of himself that he had not realized, until
Harbison plunged into the frantic love-making, that the couple were
not aware of his presence. Under the circumstances, what should he do?
He certainly could not beat up a man for asking a beautiful girl to
sit down in the shade of a beech tree with him, especially since he
had meant to do that very thing himself had not Tom got there ahead of
him. Should he make his presence known? Did Judith need his help?

The scene progressed so rapidly that before Jeff could make up his
mind exactly what he should do Judith raised her empty milk can and
gave the persistent Tom such a whack on the side of his head that the
cavalier d