somehow.”

“It is very likely, in this rifle dress I wear,” said I smiling.

“Yet a man may dress as he pleases.”

“You mistrust me for a spy?”

“If you are, why, you are but one more among many hereabouts. I think you have not been in Westchester very long. It does not matter. No boy with the face you wear was born to betray anything more important than a woman.”

I turned hot and scarlet with chagrin at her cool presumption — and would not for worlds have had her see how the impudence stung and shamed me.

For a full minute she stood there watching me; then:

“I ask pardon,”