minutes, and Winthrop, going on with his work, admired her passiveness,
he had never before seen the ability to maintain undisturbed an easy
silence in a girl so young. True, the silence had in it something of
that same element of indifference which he had noted in her before; but
one could pardon her that for her tranquillity, which was so charming
and so rare.

"Ah--sketching?" said a voice, breaking the stillness. "Yes--yes--the
old mill has, I suppose, become an object of antiquity; we must think of
it now as venerable, moss-grown."

Garda opened her eyes. "Jessamine-grown," she said, extending her hand.

The new-comer, whose footsteps had made no sound on the sand as he came
round the cape of thorns, now crossed the arena, and made a formal
obeisance over the little glove; then he threw back his shoulders, put
his hands behind him, and remained standing beside her with a
protecting, hospitable air, which seemed to include not only herself and
the stranger artist, but the ruin, the sky, the sunshine, and even to
bestow a general benediction upon the whole long, warm peninsula itself,
stretching like a finger pointing southward from the continent's broad
palm into the tropic sea.

But now Miss Thorne laid her white umbrella upon the heap of fallen
blocks beside her, and rose; she did this as though it were something of
a trouble, but a trouble that was necessary. She walked forward several
steps, and turned first towards the new-comer, then towards the younger
gentleman. "Let me present to you, Doctor, Mr. Evert Winthrop, of New
York," she said, formally. "Mr. Winthrop, this is our valued friend, Mr.
Reginald Kirby, surgeon, of Gracias-a-Dios." She then returned to her
seat with the air of one who had performed an important task.

Dr. Kirby now advanced and offered his hand to Winthrop. He was a little
man, but a little man with plenty of presence; he bore--if one had an
eye for such things--a general resemblance to a canary-bird. He had a
firm, plump little person, upon which his round, partly bald head
(visible as he stood with hat doffed) was set, with scarcely any
intervention of neck; and this plump person was attired in
nankeen-colored clothes. His face showed a small but prominent aquiline
nose, a healthily yellow complexion, and round, bright black eyes. When
he talked he moved his head briskly to and fro upon his shoulders, and
he had a habit of looking at the person he was addressing with one eye
only,