The commission he had accepted in her behalf from Mrs.Owen carried a serious responsibility.

These things he pondered as they walked together.

He felt the pathos of her black gown; but she had rallied from the first shock of her sorrow, and met him in his key of badinage.

She was tall--almost as tall as he; and in the combined moon- and star-light of the open spaces their eyes met easily.
He was conscious to-night of the charm in Sylvia that he had felt first on the train that day they had sped through the Berkshires together.

No other girl had ever appealed to him so strongly.