le
interdict be removed?"

"When you can enforce the right by virtue of possession."

"Heaven speed that moment!" exclaimed he, sighing audibly and mounting
his horse. "When shall we meet again, Melville?"

"That rests with you."

"Let me see, then. Not to-morrow, for at daylight we are off to Gale
Bluff for the day. Not on Wednesday, for there's a confounded picnic
afoot for that day. I wish the man who invented picnics had been
endowed with immortal life on earth and made to go to every blessed
one of 'em! But on Thursday, Mell, I shall be in the meadow at the
usual hour."

"But I won't!"

"Yes, you will, Mell."

"Positively, _I will not!_"

"Nonsense. What is your objection? Where is the harm? The young ladies
at the Bigge House entertain me out of doors."

"Do they?"

Mell was astonished, and began to waver.

"I thought it wasn't considered the thing."

"On the contrary, it is _the_ one thing warranted by the best usage.
Out-of-doors is now in the fashion. Doctors preach it, preachers
expound it, legislators enact it, and the whole people make it a
decree _plebiscite_. Clara sits with me for hours under the trees--"

"Oh, does she!" interrupted poor Mell, with a pang. Seeing her way to
a question she had long been wanting to ask, she subjoined quickly:
"And what do you think of Clara Rutland, Jerome? Do you call her an
interesting girl?"

"I never have called her that," replied Jerome, "never that I know
of, but--she'll do. One thing, she can talk a fellow stone blind at
one sitting. But that's nothing. Starlings and ravens can talk, too."

At the end of this speech, Mell was doubly anxious to know Jerome's
real opinion of Clara Rutland. It seemed to her that the question was
more open at both ends than it ever had been before.

Jerome patted his horse's head, told him to "Be quiet, sir!" and
resumed the threads of discourse.

"What was I saying? Oh, yes! We live out of doors at the Bigge House.
There wouldn't be any use for a house there at all, if it wasn't for
bad weather. Those girls try their best to be agreeable, but none of
them are _provoquante_ and charming, like you, Mell. While they sleep
away the sweetest hours of these golden summer mornings, what harm is
there in you and I enjoying pleasant converse together in the green
fields, inhaling the pure air of heaven? I promise you to be on my
best behavior. I promise you to uphold the integrity of the tip end of
that little finger inv