blackbird, marching gaily in time to his tune, flourished a
walking-stick in salutation as he approached.

'Good-afternoon, Mrs. Fellowes,' cried the newcomer. 'Good-afternoon,
_Miss_ Fellowes.'

They both returned his salutation, and he stood before them smilingly,
holding his stick lightly by the middle, and swinging it hither and
thither, as if keeping time to an inward silent tune. His feet were
planted a little apart, he carried his head well back, and his figure
was very alert and lithe. He made great use of his lips in talking, and
whatever he said seemed a little overdone in emphasis. His expression
was eager, amiable, and sensitive, and it changed like the complexion of
water in variable weather. He was a bit of a dandy in his way, too. His
clothes showed his slim and elastic figure to the best advantage, and a
bright-coloured neckerchief with loose flying ends helped out a certain
air of festal rural opera which belonged to him.

'I passed Thistlewood on my way here,' he said, laughing brightly. 'He
looked as cheerful as a frog. Did y' ever notice what a cheerful-looking
thing a frog is?'

He made a face ludicrously like the creature he mentioned. The old woman
laughed outright, and Bertha smiled, though somewhat unwillingly.

'I don't like to hear Mr. Thistlewood made game of, Mr. Protheroe,' she
said a moment later.

'Don't you, Miss Fellowes?' asked Mr. Protheroe. 'Then it shan't be done
in your presence again.'

'That means it may be done out of my presence, I suppose,' the girl said
coldly.

'No, nor out of it,' said the young fellow, bowing with something of a
flourish, 'if it displeases you.'

'Come in, Lane, my lad,' said the mother, genially. 'I've got the
poultry to look after at this hour. Bertha 'll tek care of you till I
come back again.'

Lane Protheroe bowed again with the same gay flourish, and recovering
himself from the bow with an upward swing of the head, followed the
women-folk into the wide kitchen as if he had been crossing the floor in
a minuet. If these airs of his had been assumed they would have touched
the ridiculous, but they were altogether natural to him; and what
with them and his smiling, changeful, sympathetic ways, he was a prime
favourite, and seemed to carry sunshine into all sorts of company.

When the mother had left the kitchen the girl seated herself
considerably apart from the visitor, and taking up a book from a dresser
beside her, began to turn over its