trees this afternoon and did my best to formulate a plan of action. Dandy sat on the ground before me, staring up into my face. He knew I was thinking deeply and, though he would not have disturbed me for the world, I saw that he was offering me his assistance. It consists of a rapt and undivided attention while I speak aloud whatever comes first into my head. There are but few occasions when I refuse his offer. I accepted it then.

At

"This requires strenuous concentration," said I, whereupon I began to let my eyes wander up the garden to where Cruikshank was seeing to his raspberry canes.

He really should have been called Adam. Cruikshank is no proper name for him. For that matter, she might with better reason have been called Eve. They are just a man and woman in a garden and, so far as I know, there is no tree within its high stone walls, the fruit of which they may not touch. It would have saved a deal of trouble had the garden of Eden been like this.

As I looked back, I caught Dandy's eye. It was reminding me that I was letting concentration go with the wind. That wind always springs up when I attempt anything in the nature of concentration. I know so well the tune of it. So sure as I set my mind to some definite contemplation, it plays the prettiest of fancies in my ears.

"Well, then," said I, with an effort, "what's to be done? There are a thousand difficulties. First of all, she is never alone, except in that little cage of hers with its drab white muslin curtains. If we meet her on the cliffs at night, there are the Miss Fennells guarding her with their escort. There is no possibility of seeing her in the house. But last of all—" and here I bent down, looking Dandy squarely in the eyes—"what right have we to interfere when the God of a Thousand Circumstances makes up His mind to break a woman's heart?"

Now Dandy knows nothing of the God of a Thousand Circumstances. The only God he honors is that of Chance, wherefore and on that score he answered my question as best he could. There was a sudden rustling in the long grass under the nut trees, whereat he pricked his ears and all his body stiffened to the sound. The next instant a large rat crept out of the bushes, and Dandy was after him. I made no objection. He never catches them. For a few minutes he rushes wildly in many directions, digs up innumerable things that have nothing whatever to do with it, and behaves generally as though life were a whirlwind, of which he is the centre and all-important force. After that, he comes back quietly 

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