He did not attribute affection to Mabel, only ambition; but that had pleased his vanity.

To-day he felt exceedingly sorry that she had come.
Mabel held the gate shut so that he could not pass.
"Where have you been ?" asked she, pretending sternness.
"Just along by the shore." He noticed as he said it that Mabel's frock had a dragged look about the waist, and that the seams were noticeable because of its tightness.

He remembered that her frocks had this appearance frequently, and he wished they were not so ill-made.
"I shan't let you in," cried Mabel sportively, "till you tell me exactly what you've been doing for this age." "I have not been serving my age much," he said, with some weariness in his tone.
"What ?" said Mabel.
"You asked me what I had been doing for this age," said he.

It was miserably stupid to explain.
When Caius and Mabel had sauntered up through the warm fields to the house, his mother met them in the front parlour with a fresh cap on.

Her cap, and her presence in that room, denoted that Mabel was company.