"I'll take you alternate days if you'll let me. I'd like you to-morrow, for my background is just as I want it." He turned to Mrs. Fabian. "Will you lend me your daughter to-morrow? I have the finest of Irish terriers for a watch-dog, you know."
Mrs. Fabian shrugged her shoulders. "I certainly shan't waste my time chaperoning you two cousins at this late day," she answered.
On the afternoon following Eliza met Kathleen coming across the field. She looked at her in surprise, for instead of khaki the girl was wearing a filmy white gown whose length was lifted from the clover and buttercups, and carried over her arm.
Eliza looked admiringly at the lithe figure, and the deep eyes that beamed kindly upon her.
"No wonder you are startled, Eliza; I am going to sit for my portrait," she said, clasping Miss Brewster's hard hand.
"You look as if you was ready for your wedding," returned Eliza.
"I should like it to be here if I ever have one," said Kathleen; and Eliza watched the rose-color spread from the girl's cheek to her brow, while the young eyes kept their steady, kind regard; then she inquired of Eliza as to the winter.
"I do believe she kind o' likes me for his sake," thought Eliza, standing still to look after the slender, graceful figure when Kathleen moved on amid the daisies and clover.
"She's a flower herself. That's what she is, and Mr. Philip didn't go as red as a beet for nothin' when I spoke yesterday. He thinks she's above him. There ain't anybody above him!"
Whatever was the errand that had brought Eliza into the field this afternoon she abandoned it, and turned slowly back toward the farmhouse, glancing often at the Villa through whose door the slender white figure had disappeared.