people rather resented the
extreme simplicity of his manner of living when they discovered that it
was not accompanied by the open-handed liberality which Allison had
half led them to expect; the tenant-farmers opposed any change that
would touch their pockets; and people of his own class, few and far
between in that thinly populated neighbourhood, called once, but found
little to interest them in a man of such avowedly eccentric views on
things social and religious, and tacitly let the acquaintance drop.

The one exception to this was May Webster, who, half-piqued,
half-amused, at the barrier which Paul had chosen to erect between
them, determined to break it down. She was coming out of the rectory
one afternoon when she met him at the gate.

He lifted his hat, and would have opened the gate to let her pass, but
she held it fast looking at him over the top.

"How are you? It is long since we met; never, I think, since the night
of the meeting with its exciting close. I've not thanked you properly,
by the way, for the rapid extinction of the flames."

"Oh, any one could have done it; only I happened to be the one nearest
you," said Paul, carelessly. "It needs no special thanks."

"Which is a civil way of saying that you could not let me burn, but
that you would rather some one else had put me out," said May,
mockingly. "Even so, I'm grateful; I've been calling on your friend
Kitty, who informed me with great triumph that daddy was out, but 'Mr.
Paul' was coming to tea with her. Questioned further, she informed me
that he often came when she was by herself, and he said he liked it."

"So I do," Paul said.

"So tea fetches you if dinner does not; or perhaps it is not the meal,
but the company. Frankly speaking, why do you accord your friendship
to Kitty and not to mother and me? We may be neighbours for years and
years; we may just as well be friends."

"I'm not a man of many friends," Paul answered, fairly brought to bay.
"As for Kitty, she carried me by storm; she is the only child who has
taken to me of her own free will."

"How very odd," said May, thoughtfully.

"Oh yes; I admit the oddity."

"But, if you are going to live here, are you content to be isolated
from your fellows--to have no friends?" continued May, wonderingly.

"To have many acquaintances seems to me a dreary waste of life; and the
word friendship, in the mouth of a man, implies many things."

"Notably what?" asked May, a littl