e face till he was bewitched into putting
down his brush.

'It was that stupid forgetting of 'ee for a time!' he exclaimed. 'Well,
I hadn't seen you for so very long--consider how many years! O, dear
Anne!' he said, advancing to take her hand, 'how well we knew one another
when we were children! You was a queen to me then; and so you are now,
and always.'

Possibly Anne was thrilled pleasantly enough at having brought the truant
village lad to her feet again; but he was not to find the situation so
easy as he imagined, and her hand was not to be taken yet.

'Very pretty!' she said, laughing. 'And only six weeks since Miss
Johnson left.'

'Zounds, don't say anything about that!' implored Bob. 'I swear that I
never--never deliberately loved her--for a long time together, that is;
it was a sudden sort of thing, you know. But towards you--I have more or
less honoured and respectfully loved you, off and on, all my life. There,
that's true.'

Anne retorted quickly--

'I am willing, off and on, to believe you, Captain Robert. But I don't
see any good in your making these solemn declarations.'

'Give me leave to explain, dear Miss Garland. It is to get you to be
pleased to renew an old promise--made years ago--that you'll think o'
me.'

'Not a word of any promise will I repeat.'

'Well, well, I won't urge 'ee to-day. Only let me beg of you to get over
the quite wrong notion you have of me; and it shall be my whole endeavour
to fetch your gracious favour.'

Anne turned away from him and entered the house, whither in the course of
a quarter of an hour he followed her, knocking at her door, and asking to
be let in. She said she was busy; whereupon he went away, to come back
again in a short time and receive the same answer.

'I have finished painting the summer-house for you,' he said through the
door.

'I cannot come to see it. I shall be engaged till supper-time.'

She heard him breathe a heavy sigh and withdraw, murmuring something
about his bad luck in being cut away from the starn like this. But it
was not over yet. When supper-time came and they sat down together, she
took upon herself to reprove him for what he had said to her in the
garden.

Bob made his forehead express despair.

'Now, I beg you this one thing,' he said. 'Just let me know your whole
mind. Then I shall have a chance to confess my faults and mend them, or
clear my conduct to your satisfaction.'

She answered with quickn