“Really, Mr. Atwood, I hope you have not put yourself to all this trouble on my account.”

“I have not put myself to any trouble.  But you are in trouble, Miss Jocelyn, and perhaps these flowers may enliven you a little.”

“I did not expect such kindness, such thoughtfulness.  I do not see that I am entitled to so much consideration,” she said hesitatingly, at the same time fixing on him a penetrating glance.

Although he was much embarrassed, his clear black eyes met hers without wavering, and he asked, after a moment:  “Could you not accept it if it were given freely?”

“I scarcely understand you,” she replied in some perplexity.

“Nor do I understand you, Miss Jocelyn.  I wish I did, for then I might do more for you.”

“No, Mr. Atwood,” she answered gravely, “you do not understand me.  Experience has made me immeasurably older than you are.”

“Very possibly,” he admitted, with a short, embarrassed laugh.  “My former self-assurance and complacency are all gone.”

“Self-reliance and self-restraint are better than self-assurance,” she remarked with a smile.

“Miss Jocelyn,” he began, with something like impetuosity, “I would give all the world if I could become your friend.  You could do so much for me.”

“Mr. Atwood,” said Mildred, with a laugh that was mixed with annoyance, “you are imposed upon by your fancy, and are imagining absurd things, I fear.  But you are good-hearted and I shall be a little frank with you.  We are in trouble.  Business reverses have overtaken my father, and we are poor, and may be much poorer.  I may be a working-woman the rest of my days; so, for Heaven’s sake, do not make a heroine out of me.  That would be too cruel a satire on my prosaic lot.”

“You do not understand me at all, and perhaps I scarcely understand myself.  If you think my head is filled with sentimental nonsense, time will prove you mistaken.  I have a will of my own, I can assure you, and a way of seeing what is to be seen.  I have seen a great deal since I’ve known you.  A new and larger world has been revealed to me, and I mean to do something in it worthy of a man.  I can never go on with my old life, and I will not,” he continued, almost passionately.  “I was an animal.  I was a conceited fool.  I’m very crude and unformed now, and may seem to you very ridiculous; but crudity is not absurdity, undeveloped strength is not weakness.  An awakening mind may be very awkward, but give me time and you will not be ashamed of my friendship.”

He had ceased leaning against a tree that grew near the roadway, and at some distance from the house.  In his strong feeling he forgot his embarrassment, and assumed an attitude so full of unconscious power that he inspired a dawning of respect; for, while he seemed a little beside himself, there was a method in his madness which suggested that she, as well as the young man, might eventually discover that he was