arch for
picturesque bits of landscape to turn to account in her work, her
enthusiasm was likely at any time to lead her far afield.

Just as the lane promised to debouch into an open meadow and release its
victim from any special sense of curiosity, it suddenly swerved to one
side, forced its way under a pair of bars, and ran curving away into deep
shadows, fringed with ferns, and overhung with the dense foliage of oak
and walnut. A distant glimpse of brilliant scarlet flowers, standing like
sentinels in uniform against the dark green of the undergrowth, beckoned
like a hand. With a laugh Charlotte set her foot upon the bottom rail.
"I'm coming," she called blithely to the scarlet flowers. "You needn't
shout so loud at me."

Hurrying, because of the hour, she pulled her blue linen skirts over the
fence, and dropped lightly upon the other side. She ran along the lane to
the flowers, stopped to admire, but refused to pick them, telling them
they were better where they were, and would droop before she could get
them home. Then she went swiftly on around a bend in the cart-path,
catching the faint sound of falling water, and impelled to seek its
source, just as is every one at hearing that suggestive sound. And, of
course, the water was farther away than it sounded.

A trifle short of breath, from her haste, she ran it down at last, and
came upon it--a series of small waterfalls down which a small stream
tumbled recklessly along a vagrant watercourse, seeming to care little
when it reached its destination, so that it contrived to have plenty of
fun and exercise by the way. And on the bank, stretched recumbent, hands
clasped under head, lay a long figure in gray flannels, a straw hat and a
book at its side.

Charlotte stopped short. The figure turned its head, sat up, and got
rather quickly to its feet, pushing back a heavy, dark lock of hair which
had fallen across a tanned forehead. Dr. John Leaver came forward.

"I'm so sorry I disturbed you," said Charlotte Ruston, finding words at
last, after having been surprised out of speech by the sudden apparition,
"I hope I didn't wake you from a nap."

"You haven't disturbed me, and I was not asleep. I'm only waiting for Dr.
Burns, who may come now at any minute. This is a pleasant place to meet
in, isn't it?"

Their hands met, each looked with swift, straight scrutiny into the face
of the other, and then hands and eyes parted abruptly. When they regarded
each other afte