wentieth time since he had left the tavern, Mr. Gay, whose
habit it was to appear whimsical when he felt despondent, declared to
himself that he'd be damned if the game was worth half what the candle
was likely to cost him. Having arrived, without notable misadventure,
at the age of thirty, he had already reduced experience to a series
of episodes and had embraced the casual less as a pastime than as a
philosophy.

"If the worst comes to the worst--hang it!--I suppose I may hunt a Molly
Cotton-tail," he grumbled, bringing his horse's gait down to an amble.
"There ought to be good hounds about, judging from the hang-dog look of
the natives. Why in thunder did the old boy want to bury himself and
his heirs forever in this god-forsaken land's end, and what in the deuce
have mother and Aunt Kesiah done with themselves down here for the last
twenty years? Two thousand acres? Damn it! I'd rather have six feet
on the good English soil! Came to get rid of one woman, did he?--and
tumbled into a pretty puddle with another as soon as he got here. By
George, it's in the bone and it is obliged to come out in the blood.
A Gay will go on ogling the sex, I suppose, as long as he is able to
totter back from the edge of the grave."

As he approached the blazed pine, a spot of darkness, which he had at
first mistaken for a small tree, detached itself from the surrounding
shadows, and assumed gradually a human shape. His immediate impression
was that the shape was a woman and that she was young. With his next
breath he became aware that she was also beautiful. In the fading light
her silhouette stood out as distinctly against the mellow background of
the sky, as did the great pine which marked the almost obliterated path
over the fields. Her dress was the ordinary calico one, of some dull
purplish shade, worn by the wives and daughters of the neighbouring
farmers; and on her bare white arm, with its upturned sleeve, she
carried a small split basket half filled with persimmons. She was of
an almost pure Saxon type--tall, broad-shouldered, deep-bosomed, with
a skin the colour of new milk, and soft ashen hair parted smoothly over
her ears and coiled in a large, loose knot at the back of her head. As
he reached her she smiled faintly and a little brown mole at the corner
of her mouth played charmingly up and down. After the first minute, Gay
found himself fascinated by this single imperfection in her otherwise
flawless features. More than her