try to. Coming with me, Joe?"

Vassie sat nonchalantly picking blades of grass. She would sooner never
have seen Killigrew again than have asked him to stay with her, even
than have suggested, with apparent carelessness, some plan that should
keep him. But she waited with throbbing heart for his answer.

"I'd like to," said Killigrew briskly; "I've been abominably lazy till
to-day, and that means I shall get fat. And when a person with light
eyelashes and sandy whiskers gets fat all is over. I should have to go
into my Guv'nor's business and become an alderman."

He reared his singularly graceful self up from the grass as he spoke and
helped Vassie to her feet.

"Good-bye, both of you, then," said Vassie, withdrawing her hand when
she was on her feet. "If you're going to the mill, I'll expect you when
I see you."

This would have been arch had Vassie been a little less clever; as it
was it sounded so natural that even that man-of-the-world, Killigrew,
was taken in. As he set off with Ishmael he felt a moment's regret that
he had not stayed with Vassie--a moment inspired by her lack of pique at
his not having stayed.

The sun that had gilded Vassie's head had sunk swiftly by the time they
reached the mill; and when the miller opened to their knock a flood of
lamplight came out to mingle with the soft dusk. Phoebe's mother had
died some two or three years earlier, and since then the miller had
lived with only an old aunt of his own to help him look after his
daughter. He peered out at them almost anxiously, Ishmael thought, and
seemed rather upset at sight of him.

"Who's that there?" he asked sharply; then, as Killigrew stepped forward
round the porch: "I thought maybe Phoebe was weth 'ee."

"Phoebe? Oh, no!" said Ishmael; "why, is she out?"

"'Tes of no account," replied the miller. "I reckon she'm just gone
down-along to see to the fowls or semthen. Will 'ee come in, you and your
Lunnon friend?"

Ishmael hesitated, then, remembering on what errand he had come, he
stepped in, and, despite Killigrew's obvious unwillingness, they found
themselves pledged to stay to supper.

"We really only just came to bring Phoebe this puppy my sister
promised her," Ishmael explained. "It's the pick of our Wanda's litter
and Phoebe had set her heart on it." Ishmael held up the squirming
little thing as he spoke, and it licked its black nose nervously with a
pink tongue that came out curled up like a leaf.

"Ah! she'm rare