"Don't break, please, I can get it."
Her eager voice, unmistakably girlish and refined, echoed across to Paul Macleod, who, after a moment's astonished search, traced it to a face half-seen among the parting leaves. He took off his hat mechanically, for though it might have been a pixie's there was no mistaking its gender, and the sex found a large measure of outward respect in Paul Macleod. For the rest, help offered was with him invariably help accepted; a fact which accounted for a large portion of his popularity, since people like those around whom the memory of their own benevolence can throw a halo. So he stood watching Marjory settle methodically to her task, wondering the while who the girl could possibly be. For that she had white hands and trim ankles was abundantly evident, and neither of these charms was to be expected in the rustic beauties of the Glen.
"I am afraid I am giving you a lot of trouble," he said sympathetically, as for the third time the branch flew back from Marjory's hold with a sudden spring.
"Not at all," she gasped jerkily; one cannot speak otherwise on tiptoe with both hands above one's head.
"Perhaps I had better help."
"Perhaps you had," she answered resentfully, desisting for a moment after a fourth rebuff. "There is no positive necessity for you to remain idle. You might for instance reel in as I pull."
His faint smile was tempered by respect. The young lady on the opposite bank knew what she was about, and, perhaps, might even be good looking, if she were not quite so red in the face. So he obeyed meekly, and was rewarded by a gasp of triumph.
"There! I've got it. I knew you could help if you tried."
"I'm immensely obliged," he began; then the girl's foot slipped, the branch sprang from her hand, she made an ineffectual jump after it, and the next instant the all but disentangled cast, flung into the air by the rebound, was hard and fast in a higher twig.
Marjory could have stamped with despite; thought it wiser to laugh, but found the opposite bank full of silent, grieved sympathy.