Grace S. Richmond O, weary fa' the women fo'k, For they winna let a body be! —James Hogg.

My neighbour Dahlia has returned. There is a considerable stretch of lawn, also a garden and a small orchard, intervening between her father's property and mine, not to mention a thick hedge; but in spite of these obstructions it did not take Dahlia long to discover that there were guests upon my porch. I think she recognized the Skeptic's long legs from her window, which looks down my way through a vista of tree-tops. At all events, on the morning after her arrival she appeared, coming through the hedge, down the garden path and across the lawn, a fresh and attractive figure in a pink muslin with ruffles, and one of those coquettish, white-frilled sunbonnets summer-girls wear in the country.

Dahlia is very pretty, very good company, and likable from many points of view. If only——

"Who's this coming to invade our completeness?" queried the Philosopher, looking up from his book of trout flies. Fishing, in its scientific aspect, presents many attractions to our Philosopher, although he spends so much time in getting ready to do it scientifically that he seldom finds much left in which to fish.

The Skeptic glanced at the figure coming over the lawn. Then he made a gesture as if he were about to turn up his coat collar. He hitched himself slightly behind one of the white pillars of the porch.

"Keep cool; you'll soon know," he replied to the Philosopher. "And once knowing, you'll always know."

The Philosopher looked slightly mystified at this oracular information, and gazed rather curiously at Dahlia as she came near, before he dropped his eyes to his trout flies.

The Skeptic appeared to be absorbed in a letter which he had hastily extracted from his pocket. It was merely a brief business communication in type, as I could not help seeing over his shoulder, but he withdrew his attention from it with difficulty as Dahlia paused before him. Her first greeting was for him, although I had risen just behind him.

"Oh—how do you do, Miss Dahlia?" cried the Skeptic, getting to his feet and receiving her outstretched hand in his own. Then he made as if to pass her on to me, but she wouldn't be passed until she had said something under her breath to him, smiling up into his face, her fingers clinging to his.

"Been—er—horribly busy," I heard him murmur in reply. I thought his hand showed symptoms of letting go before hers did.

I greeted Dahlia, introducing her to the Gay Lady, who smiled at her from over a handkerchief she was embroidering with my initials. I presented the Philosopher, who immediately presented his trout flies. She scanned him closely—the Philosopher is very good-looking (almost—but not quite—better-looking than the Skeptic)—then she dropped down upon one of the porch cushions by his side. He politely offered her a chair, but she insisted that she liked the cushion better, and we found it impossible to doubt that she did. At all events she remained upon it, close beside the Philosopher, as long as he retained his position; and she appeared to become absorbed in the trout flies, asking many questions, and exclaiming over some of them in a way which showed her to be of a most sympathetic disposition.

Finally the Philosopher seized upon an opportunity and rose. "Well," he observed, "I believe I'll go and try my luck."

Dahlia looked up at him. Her pretty face took on a beseeching expression.

The Philosopher regarded her uncomprehendingly.

"You will excuse——" he began.

But Dahlia did not let him finish. "I simply love to go fishing," she said softly.

"Do you?" said the Philosopher, blinking stupidly. "It is great sport, I think, myself."

Even then I believe he would have turned away. He is not used to it—at least, in Dahlia's style. But she detained him.

"Are you really not going to ask me?" she said, looking like a disappointed child.

I saw the Gay Lady look at her. The Skeptic glanced at the Gay Lady. I observed the Skeptic. But the Philosopher rose to the occasion. He is invariably courteous.

"Why, certainly," he responded, "if you would really care to go. It's rather a long walk to the stream and—I'm afraid the boat leaks considerably, but——"

"Oh, I don't mind that," she exulted, jumping up, her cheeks pink with delight. "In fact, I know that boat of old——" She gave the Skeptic a look from under her eyelashes, but he was looking at the Gay Lady and it failed to hit him. "Are you ready? All right. And I've my sunbonnet—just the thing. You shall see what we'll catch," she called back to us, as the two walked away.

The Skeptic got the pillar between himself and the departing pair. His face was convulsed with mirth. He slapped his knee. "I said he'd soon know," he chuckled, holding himself in with an effort, "but I didn't think he'd find out quite so soon. Smoke and ashes—but that was quick work!"

He turned about and looked up at the Gay Lady. "Will you go fishing?" he inquired, still chuckling.

"No, thank you," responded the Gay Lady, smiling at her embroidery without looking up.

"Will you go fishing?"

The inquiry was directed at me.

I shook my head.

The Skeptic fell into an attitude of mock despair. Then he sat up. "I'm going to go down and hide behind the big tree at the bend," he declared. "I want to see Philo when she——"

The Gay Lady spoke to me. "Do you think I'm getting that K too heavy?" she asked.

The Skeptic laughed, and strolled away—not in the direction of the trout stream.

Dahlia and the Philosopher came back just as luncheon was served. Dahlia was looking pinker than ever, and I thought the Philosopher's tan had rather a pinkish hue, also. I felt obliged to ask Dahlia to stay to luncheon and she promptly accepted. Throughout the meal she was very gay, sitting at my round table between the Philosopher and the Skeptic, and plying both with attentions. It is a singular phrase to use, in speaking of a girl, but I know no other that applies so well—in Dahlia's case.

After luncheon the Philosopher bolted. His movements are usually deliberate, but I never saw a quicker exit made from a dining-room which has only two doors. One door leads into the hall, the other to the pantry. The rest of us went out the hall door. When we reached the porch the Philosopher was missing. There is no explanation except that he went out by the pantry door.

On the porch the Skeptic said, "I must run down to the barn and look after Skylark's foot. He cut himself when I was out on him yesterday."

He hastened away down the driveway.

Dahlia looked after him.

"Is Skylark here?" she asked. "Oh, how I want to see the dear thing! And he's cut his foot!—I'm going to run down to the barn, too, and see him."

And she hurried away after the Skeptic.

"I think I'll go in and sleep a while," said the Gay Lady to me. Her expressive lips had a curious little twist of scorn.

"I should, too, if I hadn't a new guest," said I.

We tried not to smile at each other, but we couldn't quite help it.

The Gay Lady went away to her room. I heard her close the blinds on the side that looked off toward the barn, and, glancing up, saw that she had turned down the slats tightly.

I think it must have been well on toward four in the afternoon when the white sunbonnet at last disappeared through the gap in the hedge. The Skeptic came back up the garden path at the pace of an escaping convict, and went tearing up the stairs to his room. I heard him splashing like a seal in his bath. Presently he came out, freshly attired and went away down the road, in the opposite direction from that in which lay the house beyond the hedge.

Dahlia came over at twilight that evening—to bring me a great bunch of golden-glow. She was captivatingly arrayed in blue. She remained for an hour or so. When she went away the Skeptic walked home with her. He was forced to do it. The Philosopher had disappeared again, quite without warning, some twenty minutes earlier.

She came over the next afternoon. On the day following she practically took up her residence with us. I thought of inviting her to bring a trunk and occupy the white room. On the fourth night I accidentally overheard a brief but pregnant colloquy which took place just inside the library door, toward the last of the evening.

"You've got to take her home to-night, old man."

"I won't." It was the Philosopher.

"You've got to. It's your turn. No shirking."

"I'll be hanged if I will."

"I'll be hanged if I will. There's a limit."

"I'd always supposed there was. There doesn't seem to be."

"Come along—stand up to it like a man. It's up to you to-night. She can't carry you off bodily."

"I'm not so sure of that." The Philosopher's tone was grim.

So far I had been transfixed. But now I hurried away. I was consumed with anxiety during the next ten minutes, lest they come to blows in settling it. But when they appeared I could tell that they had settled it somehow.

When Dahlia arose and said that she positively must go they both accompanied her. The transit occupied less time than it had done on any previous occasion.

From this time on there was concerted action on the part of our two men. Where one was, the other was. The Gay Lady and I received less attention than we were accustomed to expect—the two men were too busy standing by each other to have much time for us.

"I'm so sorry," said Dahlia, coming over after dinner on the tenth evening, "but I'm going away to-morrow. I've an invitation that I'm simply not allowed to refuse."

The Philosopher's face lit up. He attempted to conceal it by burying his head in his handkerchief for a moment, in mock distress, but his satisfaction showed even behind his ears. The Skeptic bent down and elaborately tied his shoe-ribbon. The Gay Lady regarded Dahlia sweetly, and said, "That's surely very nice for you."

"I think," observed Dahlia, looking coyly from the Skeptic to the Philosopher, "that I shall have to let each of you take me for a farewell walk to-night. You first"—she indicated the Philosopher. "Or shall it be a row for one and a walk for the other?"

She and the Philosopher strolled away toward the river. There had been no way out for him.

"The Englishman, the Scotsman and the Irishman," began the Skeptic, in a conversational tone, "being about to be hanged, were given their choice of a tree. 'The oak for me,' says the Englishman. 'The Scotch elm for mine,' says the Scotsman. 'Faith,' says the Irishman, 'I'll be afther takin' a gooseberry bush.' 'That's too small,' says the hangman. 'I'll wait for it to grow,' says the Irishman contentedly."

Whereat he disappeared. When Dahlia and the Philosopher returned he had not come back. I was amazed at him, but my amazement did not produce him, and the Philosopher accompanied Dahlia home. When they were well away the Skeptic swung himself up over the side of the porch, from among some bushes.

"'All's fair in love and war,'" he grinned. "Besides, the campaign's over. Philo's gained experience. He's a veteran now. He'll never be such easy game again. Haven't we behaved well, on the whole?" he asked the Gay Lady, dropping upon a cushion at her feet.

"I don't think you have," said the Gay Lady gently.

"We haven't! Why not?"

She shook her head. "I refuse to discuss it," she said, as gently as before, but quite firmly.

The Skeptic sighed. "I'm sorry," he declared. "You really don't know——"

"I don't want to know," said the Gay Lady. "Isn't it a lovely, lovely evening?"

"Yes, it's a lovely evening," said the Skeptic, looking up at her. "It would be delightful on the river."

She shook her head again.

"Not nicer than here," she answered.

The Philosopher came back. When he was half-way across the lawn the Skeptic jumped up and rushed forward and offered his shoulder for the Philosopher to lean upon.

"Clear out," said the Philosopher shortly.

"I'm glad to hear it," rejoined the Skeptic. "I feared you might be clear in."

"It's not your fault that I'm not," grunted the Philosopher.

He dropped down upon the porch step in an exhausted way.

The Gay Lady rose.

"The air is making me sleepy," said she in her musically sweet voice. "Good-night."

The Skeptic and the Philosopher looked after her retreating figure even after it ceased to be visible, drifting down the wide, central hall.

"The worst of it is," grumbled the Skeptic, "that an exhibition of that sort of thing always makes the other kind draw off, for fear we may possibly think they're in the same class."

I, too, now said good-night, and went away to let them have it out between them.

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