his services as a
guide; she descended to the open air, shook the flour from her like a
bird, and went on into the garden amid the September sunshine, whose rays
lay level across the blue haze which the earth gave forth. The gnats
were dancing up and down in airy companies, the nasturtium flowers shone
out in groups from the dark hedge over which they climbed, and the mellow
smell of the decline of summer was exhaled by everything. Bob followed
her as far as the gate, looked after her, thought of her as the same girl
who had half encouraged him years ago, when she seemed so superior to
him; though now they were almost equal she apparently thought him beneath
her. It was with a new sense of pleasure that his mind flew to the fact
that she was now an inmate of his father's house.

His obsequious bearing was continued during the next week. In the busy
hours of the day they seldom met, but they regularly encountered each
other at meals, and these cheerful occasions began to have an interest
for him quite irrespective of dishes and cups. When Anne entered and
took her seat she was always loudly hailed by Miller Loveday as he
whetted his knife; but from Bob she condescended to accept no such
familiar greeting, and they often sat down together as if each had a
blind eye in the direction of the other. Bob sometimes told serious and
correct stories about sea-captains, pilots, boatswains, mates, able
seamen, and other curious fauna of the marine world; but these were
directly addressed to his father and Mrs. Loveday, Anne being included at
the clinching-point by a glance only. He sometimes opened bottles of
sweet cider for her, and then she thanked him; but even this did not lead
to her encouraging his chat.

One day when Anne was paring an apple she was left at table with the
young man. 'I have made something for you,' he said.

She looked all over the table; nothing was there save the ordinary
remnants.

'O I don't mean that it is here; it is out by the bridge at the
mill-head.'

He arose, and Anne followed with curiosity in her eyes, and with her firm
little mouth pouted up to a puzzled shape. On reaching the mossy mill-
head she found that he had fixed in the keen damp draught which always
prevailed over the wheel an AEolian harp of large size. At present the
strings were partly covered with a cloth. He lifted it, and the wires
began to emit a weird harmony which mingled curiously with the plashing
of the whe