aid Lucian.

"I am to do that?" asked Garda, looking at him.

He nodded. She went back, took Margaret's nearly finished wreath and all
the rest of the gathered vines, and returning to the tomb, one arm
loaded with them, the long sprays falling over her dress, she laid her
other hand on Lucian's shoulder, and drawing him near the old stones,
clung to him a little as if half afraid, bending her head at the same
time as though reading the inscription which was supposed to be written
there. The attitude was extremely graceful, a half-shrinking,
half-fascinated curiosity. "This it?" she asked.

"Not the least in the world! What has Mr. Spenser to do with it?" said
Margaret.

"He's the Arcadian shepherds."

"Let me place you." And Margaret drew her away.

Garda yielded passively. Nothing could have been sweeter than the
expression of her face when Margaret had at length satisfied herself as
regarded position. The girl stood behind the tomb, which rose a little
higher than her knees; she rested one hand on its gray edge, holding the
wreath on her other arm, which was pressed against her breast.

"You ought to be looking down," said Margaret.

But Garda did not look down.

"She is supposed to have read the inscription, and to be musing over
it," suggested Lucian.

He fell to work immediately.

"We have been here an hour and a half, and we promised to be back in an
hour--remember that, Mr. Spenser," said Margaret, who had seated herself
near him.

"The bare outlines," murmured Lucian.

He did not appear to wish to speak. As for Garda, she looked as though
she should never speak again; she looked like a picture more than a real
presence--a picture, but not of nineteenth-century painting. She did not
stir, her eyes were full of a wonderful light. After a while it seemed
to oppress Margaret--this glowing vision beside the gray tomb in the
still wood. She rose and went to Lucian, watching him work, she began to
talk. "It's fortunate that you have already sketched the tomb," she
said; "you can use that sketch for the details."

He did not reply, Garda's softly fixed eyes seemed to hold him bound.

Margaret looked at her watch; then she went to Garda, took the wreath
from her, and, putting her arm in hers, led her back towards the path.
"I am obliged to use force," she said. "The sitting is declared over."

"Till the next, then," said Garda to Lucian.

As he began to pack up his sketching materials, Margaret went