"
Again the girl giggled and again he flushed with rage.
He found her in the garden, busy with her flowers. The border of tall
jonquils were in full bloom, a gorgeous yellow flame leaping from both
sides of the narrow walkway which circled the high brick wall covered
with a mass of honeysuckle. She held a huge pair of pruning shears,
clipping the honeysuckle away from the budding violet beds.
She lifted her laughing brown eyes to his.
"Do help me!" she cried. "This honeysuckle vine is going to cover the
whole garden and smother the house itself, I'm afraid."
He took the shears from her pink fingers and felt the thrill of their
touch for just a moment.
His eyes lingered on the beautiful picture she made with flushed face
and tangled ringlets of golden brown hair falling over forehead and
cheeks and white rounded throat. The blue gingham apron was infinitely
more becoming than the most elaborate ball costume. It suggested home
and the sweet intimacy of comradeship.
"You're lovely in that blue apron, Miss Betty," he said with
earnestness.
"Then I'm forgiven for making home folks of you?"
"I'm very happy in it."
"Well, you see I had no choice," she hastened to add. "I just had to
finish these flowers before dressing for dinner. I'm expecting that
handsome brother of yours directly and I must look my best for him, now
mustn't I?"
She smiled into his eyes with such charming audacity he had to laugh.
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