hen Miss
Kathleen McDonnell remarked that there went the ride she'd been looking
forward to all day.

"Well, you two go on an I'll walk back," Miss McDonnell offered.

"Oh, but I can easily hire another machine," said Michael.

"No. I'll go back. I've grazed my knee a bit badly."

Michael was so much perturbed to hear this that without thinking he
anxiously asked to be allowed to look, and wished that the drain by
which he was standing would swallow him up when he realized by
Kathleen's giggling what he had said.

"It's all right," said Miss McDonnell kindly. "There's no need to worry.
I hope you'll have a pleasant ride."

"I say, it's really awfully ripping of you to be so jolly good-tempered
about it," Michael exclaimed. "Are you sure I can't do anything?"

"No, you can just put my bicycle in the shop along there, and I'll take
the tram back. Mind and enjoy yourselves, and don't be late."

The equable Miss McDonnell then left her sister and Michael to their own
devices.

They rode along in alert silence until they left Branksome behind them
and came into hedgerows, where an insect earned Michael's cordial
gratitude by invading his eye. He jumped off his bicycle immediately and
called for Kathleen's aid, and as he stood in the quiet lane with the
girl's face close to his and her hand brushing his cheeks, Michael felt
himself to be indeed a favourite of fortune.

"There it is, Mr. Fane," said Miss Kathleen McDonnell. And, though he
tried to be sceptical for a while of the insect's discovery, he was
bound to admit the evidence of the handkerchief.

"Thanks awfully," said Michael. "And I say, I wish you wouldn't call me
Mr. Fane. You know my Christian name."

"Oh, but I'd feel shy to call you Michael," said Miss McDonnell.

"Not if I called you Kathleen," Michael suggested, and felt inclined to
shake his own hand in congratulation of his own magnificent daring.

"Well, I must say one thing. You don't waste much time. I think you're a
bit of a flirt, you know," said Kathleen.

"A flirt," Michael echoed. "Oh, I say, do you really think so?"

"I'm afraid I do," murmured Kathleen. "Shall we go on again?"

They rode along in renewed silence for several miles, and then they
suddenly came upon Poole Harbour lying below them, washed in the
tremulous golden airs of the afternoon.

"I say, how ripping!" cried Michael, leaping from his machine and
flinging it away from him against a bank of vivid grass. "We must