unbuckle the straps, she found herself wondering: "Is this
a knightly service, or the menial duty of a porter? Can a man be both
sensitive and ignorant, chivalrous and vulgar?"

The question was not so easily decided, though no one guessed how much
Miss Bartram pondered it, during the succeeding days. She insisted, from
the first, that her coming should make no change in the habits of the
household; she rose in the cool, dewy summer dawns, dined at noon in the
old brown room beside the kitchen, and only differed from the Rambos
in sitting at her moonlit window, and breathing the subtle odors of a
myriad leaves, long after Betty was sleeping the sleep of health.

It was strange how frequently the strong, not very graceful figure of
Leonard Clare marched through these reveries. She occasionally spoke to
him at the common table, or as she passed the borders of the hay-field,
where he and Henry were at work: but his words to her were always few
and constrained. What was there in his eyes that haunted her? Not merely
a most reverent admiration of her pure womanly refinement, although she
read that also; not a fear of disparagement, such as his awkward speech
implied, but something which seemed to seek agonizingly for another
language than that of the lips,--something which appealed to her from
equal ground, and asked for an answer.

One evening she met him in the lane, as she returned from the meadow.
She carried a bunch of flowers, with delicate blue and lilac bells, and
asked him the name.

"Them's Brandywine cowslips," he answered; "I never heard no other name.

"May I correct you?" she said, gently, and with a smile which she meant
to be playful. "I suppose the main thing is to speak one's thought, but
there are neat and orderly ways, and there are careless ways." Thereupon
she pointed out the inaccuracies of his answer, he standing beside her,
silent and attentive. When she ceased, he did not immediately reply.

"You will take it in good part, will you not?" she continued. "I hope I
have not offended you."

"No!" he exclaimed, firmly, lifting his head, and looking at her. The
inscrutable expression in his dark gray eyes was stronger than before,
and all his features were more clearly drawn. He reminded her of a
picture of Adam which she had once seen: there was the same rather low
forehead, straight, even brows, full yet strong mouth, and that broader
form of chin which repeats and balances the character of the fo