are as high-spirited and disingenuous as you appear. Before it is too late, allow me to point out that we could never welcome any choice of his from local circles; and that when he marries it should be, in view of the equivocal social relationship in which we are placed here, to one of his own station in life. Assuring you that I write in kindness, and with feelings of highest respect for you as a neighbour,
"Yours faithfully,
"Hilda Courtenay."
Hurriedly closing the cruel little missive, and seeking the gardener, she commissioned him to let one of the lads deliver it by hand.
The men were streaming homeward from labour in field and mill, garden and vineyard. Children hastening forth to meet them, were hiding tiny hands in hard brown palms, or helping to carry empty lunch-bags. On hundreds of joints the basting was being poured, while children were assembling around simple but well-supplied family boards.
"Good-morning, Gwyneth. Is dinner ready?" was Travers' greeting, as he stood with raised hat at the Sergeant's door.
Hearing a step on the gravel, the girl had hurried to the embowered porch to welcome her father, as she supposed.
"What brings you here?" she demanded, with surprise not unmixed with evident pleasure. "Where is my father?"
"At the canal. He telephoned that he could not
