"I also hope that—er—I trust that since we're neighbours, I—we——"
"The wall is not insurmountable, sir. Well? O man," she cried suddenly—"if you really want it so why don't you ask for it—or take it?"
The Major stared and flushed.
"You—you mean——"
"This!" she cried and tossed the rose to his feet. Scarcely believing his eyes he stooped and took it up, and holding it in reverent fingers watched her hasting along the yew-walk. Standing thus he saw her met by a slender, elegant gentleman, saw him stoop to kiss her white fingers, and, turning suddenly, strode to the ladder.
So the Major presently climbed back over the wall and went his way, the rose tenderly cherished in the depths of one of his great side-pockets and, as he went, he limped rather noticeably but whistled softly to himself, a thing very strange in him, whistled softly but very merrily.
CHAPTER V
HOW SERGEANT ZEBEDEE TRING BEGAN TO WONDER
Mrs. Agatha sat just within the kitchen-garden shelling peas—and Mrs. Agatha did it as only a really accomplished woman might; at least, so thought Sergeant Zebedee, who, busied about some of his multifarious carpentry jobs, happened to come that way. He thought also that with her pretty face beneath snowy mob-cap, her shapely figure in its neat gown, she made as attractive a picture as any man might see on the longest day's march—of all which Mrs. Agatha was supremely conscious, of course.