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you, then. I’ve not begun the book yet. I’ve all my time.—Wait a moment.’ He left her on the threshold.

She stood in the doorway looking at the snap-dragons and wondering anew at the things he took for granted. She had not expected to have him beside her on the way back. She had, perhaps, been intending to escape him. Then she heard his footstep sounding along the stone passages and as he appeared before her she saw with surprise that he carried a hatchet in his hand. ‘I follow Norah’s counsels with regard to chairs and borders,’ he remarked, stepping out before her, ‘and I will now follow yours about the trellis. Stand a little inside;—it might fall on you.—It’s a farmer’s house with the trellis, isn’t it? Now we will transform it into a gentlemanly residence,’ and, the surprise warming to amazement, Monica saw him lay the hatchet with fell strokes about the base of the harmless structure.

‘Oh! — Wait! — Do wait and think it over first!’ She did not know what to say. The flimsy supports came crashing down; the poor old tattered crimson-rambler drooped on its fastenings. ‘Really this is reckless!’ she cried, half amused, half indignant.

‘Not the least reckless,’ said Captain Ingpen,