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Leila, gay and excited as a schoolgirl, chattered on ceaselessly to Plank; all the silence, all the secrecy of the arid years turning to laughter on her red lips, pouring out, in broken phrases of delight, words strung together for the sheer pleasure of speech and the happiness of her lot to be with hi of a wild bird on the edge of a clearing at night, and how, standing entranced, the low, distant jar of thunder sounded at moments, scarcely audible--like his heart now, at intervals, dully persistent aaiety of her voice

"And would you believe it, Beverly," she said, "I for across the boundary and strolling into your greenhouses and deliberately helping myself And every time I did it I was certain one of your hed, but did not tell her that his men had reported the first episode and that he had instructed them that Mrs Mortimer and her friends were to do exactly as they pleased at the Fells However she knew it, because a garrulous gardener, proud of his service with Plank, had informed her

"Beverly," she said, "you are a dear If people only knehat I know!"

He began to turn red; she could see it even in the flickering, laently, even tenderly; and their voices greer in a half-serious badinage that ended with a quiet, indrawn breath, a sigh, and silence

And now the river swept into view, a darkly luleaed into its soloohts of Riverside Inn

Up the broad, gentle grade they sped, curving in and out a the clureat circle up to the steps of the inn

Now all about theay tumult broke out like an uproarious welcome after the swift silence of their journey; the stir of jolly people keen for pleasure; the clatter of crockery; the couests, of hanso and turning through the blinding glare of their own headlights

Soipsy orchestra, full of fitful crescendoes and throbbing suspensions of caprice, furnished resonant accompaniment to the joyous clamour; the scent of fountain spray and floas in the air