tell you
beforehand, you might refuse to accept my services altogether."

"Is it so bad as that?" laughed Iris.

"You had better use the word _good_ instead of bad. The idea would be
more pleasant."

"Not knowing what you are talking about, and not possessing the key to
solve the riddle of your incomprehensible words, I had better make no
further reply, lest I get into deep water," she pouted. "But really you
have aroused my curiosity."

"Well, when we have the first wreath made, then, and not until then,
will I tell you what they say of the youth and maiden who weave autumn
leaves for each other, and together. Come and sit on this mossy ledge. I
will spread my overcoat upon it. It shall be your throne."

"I will be a queen, but where will be my king?" laughed Iris, gayly.

"Your king will come a-wooing all in good time," he answered, his dark
eyes seeking hers with a meaning glance, which the beauty and coquette
understood but too well.

In less time than it takes to tell it, Kendal had gathered about her
heaps of the beautiful, shining leaves.

"Oh, aren't they lovely!" cried Iris, delightedly. "I fairly adore
autumn leaves."

"I did not know that you had such an eye for the beautiful in nature,"
he retorted, rather pleased.

"I adore everything that is handsome," she said, in a low voice,
returning his look of a few moments ago with interest.

An hour flew by on golden wings, and the wreaths grew beneath their
touch.

"Now you look indeed a queen!" cried Harry, raising one gracefully, and
laying it on the girl's dark curls. "You remind me just now of pictures
I have seen of Undine and the woodland nymphs."

"Ah! but Undine had no heart," declared Iris.

"In some respects you are like Undine," he retorted. "She never knew she
had a heart till she was conscious of its loss. Ah, but you do look
bewitching, Miss Vincent--Iris, with that wreath of autumn foliage on
your head, like a crown of dying sunset. When I see the leaves turn in
the autumn, lines that I read somewhere always recur to me:

"'As bathed in blood the trailing vines appear,
While 'round them, soft and low, the wild wind grieves;
The heart of autumn must have broken here,
And poured her treasure out upon the leaves.'"

"What pretty poetry!" sighed Iris. "Why, it seems to me that you have
some beautiful sentiment, set to rhyme, to express almost every thought!
You must love poetry. Does--does Dorothy care for it?"