HOW YOUNG TORODE TOOK THE DEVIL OUT OF BLACK BOY It was a day of days--a perfect Midsummer Day.

The sky was blue without a cloud, the blaze of the gorse was dimming, but the ferns and foxgloves swung in the breeze, the hedgerows laughed with wild roses and honeysuckle, and the air was full of life and sweetness and the songs of larks and the homely humming of bees.

And here was I come back from the Florida swamps and all the perils of the seas, jogging quietly along on that moving nosegay Gray Robin, with the arms of the fairest maid in all Sercq round my waist, and the brim of her hat tickling my neck, and her face so close to my shoulder that it was hard work not to turn and kiss it.
My mind was, set to make the most of my good fortune, but the thought of young Torode, and of Carette riding back with him, kept coming upon me like an east wind on a sunny day, and I found myself more tongue-tied than ever I had been with her before, even of late years.
Did she care for this man?
Had his good looks, which I could not deny, cast dust in her eyes?
Could she be blind to his black humours, which, to me, were more visible even than his good looks?
From what Aunt Jeanne had said, he was by way of being very well off.

And perhaps the results of the Miss Maugers' teachings would incline a girl to consider such things.

I thought they probably would.