he gathering. Incidentally, may I ask into what particular garden I
have had the good luck to fall?"

"This is Caviare Court, Fullerton, Kent."

"_No?_ You don't mean it?"

"Why, yes. Why shouldn't I mean it?"

"That really is odd. Then your father is Colonel Currie?"

"Yes. How ever do you come to know that?"

"Because he happens to be my mother's brother. My name is
Hampton--Reginald Hampton."

There was silence for some time; then--

"You should have told me that before," said the girl, in an aggrieved
tone.

"I don't see that _we_ are responsible for parental quarrels," responded
the other, warmly. "My mother married the wrong man, from Colonel
Currie's point of view, and they have sworn eternal enmity. But how
should that affect us? By Jove, we're cousins! To think that I have to
thank the friskiness of my balloon for getting to know you."

Another silence.

"I hope father won't come home while you're here," cried the girl,
suddenly. "He's never seen you, but you may be like the family, and it
is not a likeness one can easily mistake. Have you a peculiar little
dent in the middle of an otherwise straight nose?"

The query was advanced with an eagerness ludicrously at variance with
the difference of their respective situations. It seemed--as Charles
Lamb said of humorous letters to distant lands--as though eagerness must
grow so stale before it reached the summit of this big pear tree.

"Yes, I have," answered Hampton, laughing.

"Then your fate is sealed. Father may return at any moment, and you
really musn't come down into the garden."

"But I'm awfully hungry," said Mr. Hampton, plaintively.

"I'll send you up something to eat, as I suggested at first."

"I have no string, or rope, or anything I can let down."

This was scarcely accurate, but Reginald Hampton saw too many
capabilities in the situation, to let it go readily. Finally, he
overcame the girl's scruples, and she departed in quest of a ladder.

As his daughter disappeared at the rear of the house, Colonel Currie
came round the front. He was smoking a cheroot, the slowly curling smoke
from which, as also his whole gait and mien, was suggestive of peaceful
proprietorship. He paused to examine his bed of spring wallflowers,
stooped to uproot an impertinent dandelion which had taken root in his
otherwise irreproachable turf, gathered a fine auricula and placed it in
his button-hole. Then he took a contented survey of his fruit trees,