"Of course," she said earnestly, somewhat surprised at the question. "All the time till you are home again."
"Let me hear you say it now," he entreated.
"Good-bye, Paul," she said obediently, and made to withdraw her hands.
"And you are quite sure about the—about the kiss?" he asked diffidently.
Hazel regarded him in mild reproach.
"I am sorry," he said hastily. "I did not mean to ask again. Good-bye, Hazel; don't forget me."
He vaulted over the fence and was gone.
Following the same twisting path that he had passed over then, with his child companion, the young man was presently aware that his dog, which had trotted on ahead, was leaping backwards and forwards before a certain tree, breaking into short, excited barks. Thinking it likely that Towzer was scaring some pet or other of Hazel's, Paul called sharply to his four-footed friend, but was not heeded by that usually most obedient of dogs. Becoming angry, he quickened his pace, and, raising his stick, was about to punish Towzer, when, to his astonishment, its point was seized from above and held firmly—after one or two ineffectual efforts to wrest it from his hand—while a girlish voice said, in laughing tones:
"No, you don't."
Paul peered up, in among the clustering foliage, and presently descried the recumbent form of a girl, lying at full length along one of the great boughs—her dress, of the exact shade of the bark, rendering her discovery difficult. The girl released her hold of the stick and sat up, one slender foot and ankle becoming visible beneath the canopy of leaves above the young man's head, and with both hands she parted the green screen before her face and peeped down at him. It was a lovely face that Paul beheld—bewitching, indescribable in its charm, framed in soft brown hair.