ttered a laugh that caught her breath as if it had been a sob. "Oh,
don't talk about it, Hugh! I should be bored--bored to death. I want the
real thing--the real thing--not a polite substitute."

"Sorry," said Hugh imperturbably. "I have offered the utmost of which I
am capable. May I have my tea here, please? It's less trouble than
scrambling ashore."

She acceded to his request without protest; but she stepped on to the
bank herself, and sat down with her back to a corn-sheaf. Very young and
slender she looked sitting there with the sunshine on her brown,
elf-like face, but she was by no means without dignity. There was a
fairy queenliness about her that imparted an indescribable charm to her
every movement. Her eyes were grey and fearless.

"How lovely to own a field like this!" she said. "And plough it and sow
it and watch it grow up, and then cut it and turn it into sheaves! How
proud the man who owns it must be!"

Something stirred on the other side of the sheaf, and she started a
little and glanced backwards. "What's that?"

"A rat probably," said Hugh Chesyl serenely from his couch in the punt.
"I expect the place is full of 'em. Won't you continue your rhapsody?
The man who owns this particular field is a miller as well as a farmer.
He grinds his own grain."

"Oh, is he that man?" Eagerly she broke in. "Does he live in that
perfectly exquisite old red-brick house on the water with the wheel
turning all day long? Oh, isn't he lucky?"

"I doubt if he thinks so," said Hugh Chesyl. "I've never met a contented
farmer yet."

"I don't like people to be too contented," said Doris perversely. "It's
a sign of laziness and--yes--weakness of purpose."

"Oh, is it?" Again he uttered his good-tempered laugh; then, as he began
to drink his tea, he gradually sobered. "Has anything happened lately to
make you specially discontented with your lot?" he asked presently.

Doris's brows contracted. "Things are always happening. My stepmother
gets more unbearable every day. I sometimes think I will go and work
for my living, but my father won't hear of it. And what can I do? I
haven't qualified for anything. The only thing open to me is to fill a
post of unpaid companion to a rich and elderly cousin who would put up
with me but doesn't much want me. She lives at Kensington, too, and I
can breathe only in the country."

"Poor little girl!" said Hugh kindly.

"Oh, don't pity me!" she said quickly. "You can't do anything t