pastime. But the young fellow was either lucky or wise. He had not been there more than five minutes by his watch, when a girl turned the corner, and came, with down-bent head, slowly sauntering along the road below him. His clasping hand on the rough oak-bark shifted slightly, to allow him to lean a little further and gain a wider range, though he was careful to keep in the shelter of his tree and the hawthorn hedge. A few steps brought the girl exactly opposite his hiding-place. There she paused.

She sauntered because her hands and eyes were occupied, and she took no heed of the way she went. She paused because her occupation became so engrossing that she forgot to take another step. She wore long, loose gloves, to guard her hands and wrists, and as she came she had pulled autumn leaves of briony and bramble, and brier sprays with their bunches of glowing hips. These she was gathering together and arranging, partly that they might be easier to carry, and partly to justify her pleasure in their beauty by setting it off to the best advantage. As she completed her task, a tuft of yellow leaves on the bank beside her caught her eye. She stretched her hand to gather it, and the man above looked straight down into her unconscious upturned face.

She was not more than eighteen or nineteen, and by a touch of innocent shyness in her glances and movements she might have been judged to be still younger. She was slight and dark, with a soft loose cloud of dusky hair, and a face, not flower-like in its charm, but with a healthful beauty more akin to her own autumn berries—ripe, clear-skinned, and sweet. As she looked up, with red lips parted, it was hardly wonderful that the lips of the man in ambush, breathlessly silent though he was, made answer with a smile. She plucked the yellow leaves and turned away, and he suffered his breath to escape softly in a sigh. Yet he was smiling still at the pretty picture of that innocent face held up to him.

It was all over in a minute. She had come and gone, and he stood up, still cautiously, lest she should return, and looked at the broad brown slope down which he had come so eagerly. Every step of that lightly-trodden way must be retraced, and time was short. But even as he faced it he turned for one last glance at the spot where she had stood. And there, like coloured jewels on the dull earth, lay a bunch of hips, orange and glowing scarlet, which she had unawares let fall. In a moment he was down on the road, had caught up his prize, and almost as quickly had pulled himself up again, and was standing behind the sheltering tree while he fastened it in his coat. And when he had secured it, it seemed, after all, as if he had needed just that touch of soft bright colour, and would not have been completely himself without it.

"Barbara's gift," he said to himself, looking down at it. "I'll tell her of it one of these days, when the poor things are dead and dry! No, that they never shall be!" He quickened his pace. "They shall live, at any rate, for me. It would not be amiss for a sonnet. Love's Gleaning—yes, or Love's Alms," and before the young fellow's eyes rose the dainty vision of a creamy, faintly-ribbed page, with strong yet delicately-cut Roman type and slim italics. Though not a line of it was written, he could vaguely see that sonnet in which his rosy spoil should be enshrined. He could even see Barbara reading it, on some future day, while he added the commentary, which was not for the world in general, but for Barbara. It became clearer to him as he hurried on, striking across the fields to reach his destination more directly. Snatches of musical words floated on the evening air, and he quickened his pace unconsciously as if in actual pursuit. To the east the sky grew cold and blue, and the moon, pearl white, but as yet not luminous, swam above him as he walked.

So the poet went in quest of rhymes, and Barbara, strolling onward, looked for leaves and berries. She had not gone far when she spied some more, better, of course, than any she had already gathered. This time they were on the lower bank which sloped steeply downward to a muddy ditch. Barbara looked at them longingly, decided that they were attainable, and put her nosegay down on the damp grass that she might have both hands free for her enterprise.

She was certain she could get them. She leaned forward, her finger-tips almost brushed them, when a man's footsteps, close beside her, startled her into consciousness of an undignified position, and she sprang back to firmer ground. But a thin chain she wore had caught on a thorny spray. It snapped, and a little gold cross dropped from it, and lay, rather more than half-way down, among the briers and withered leaves. She snatched at the dangling chain, and stood, flushed and disconcerted, trying to appear absorbed in the landscape, and unconscious of the passer-by who had done the mischief. If only he would pass by as quickly as possible, and leave her to regain her treasure and gather her berries!

But the steps hesitated, halted, and there was a pause—an immense pause—during which Barbara kept her eyes fixed on a particular spot in the meadow below. It appeared to her that the eyes of the unknown man were fixed on the back of her head, and the sensation was intolerable. After a moment, however, he spoke, and broke the spell. It was a gentleman's voice, she perceived, but a little forced and hard, as if the words cost him something of an effort.

"I—I beg your pardon, but can I be of any service? I think you dropped something—ah! a little cross." He came to her side. "Will you allow me to get it for you?"

Barbara went through the form of glancing at him, but she did not meet his eyes. "Thank you," she said, "but I needn't trouble you, really." And she returned to her pensive contemplation of that spot where the meadow grass grew somewhat more rankly tufted.

He paused again before speaking. It seemed to Barbara that this young man did nothing but pause. "I don't think you can get it," he said, looking at the brambles. "I really don't think you can."

If Barbara had frankly uttered her inmost sentiments she would have said, "Great idiot—no—not if you don't go away!" But, as it was, she coloured yet more in her shyness, and stooped to pick up her nosegay from the ground. He had been within an inch of treading on it.

"Oh, I beg your pardon!" he exclaimed, starting back. "How clumsy of me!"

Something in his tone disarmed her. She feared that she had been ungracious, and moreover she was a little doubtful whether she would not find it difficult to regain her trinket without his help. "You haven't done any harm," she said. Then, glancing downward, "Well, if you will be so kind."

The new-comer surveyed the situation so intently that Barbara took the opportunity of surveying him.

She was familiar, in novels, with heroes and heroines who were not precisely beautiful, yet possessed a nameless and all-conquering charm. Perhaps for that very reason she was slow to recognize good looks where this charm was absent. The tall young fellow who stood a few steps away, gazing with knitted brows at the little wilderness of briers, was really very handsome, but he was not certain of the fact. Beauty should not be self-conscious, but it should not despondently question its own existence. This man seemed to be accustomed to a chilly, ungenial atmosphere, to be numbed and repressed, to lack fire. Barbara fancied that if he touched her his hand would be cold.

In