Her hands were clasped, and she looked at Tommy, appealingly.

Tommy surveyed the hat, which had swung into the pool.

"It's too deep, just there, for me to go in, with my clothes on," he said.

"But there's a shallow part a little way down, and I'll go for it there.

Come on."

He jumped up, and crammed his stockings and shoes into his pockets, as they ran down the path, beside the brook.

"How did you lose it?" he asked.

"I was climbing a tree--and--and the wind blowed it off."

"Oh!"

"My governess is reading a book, about half a mile up the stream, where the poplars are."

"Oh!"

Tommy felt strangely tongue-tied--a new and wholly perplexing experience. He was relieved when they arrived at the shallows, and waded carefully into the stream.

As the hat sailed down, he dexterously caught it, and came back in triumph.

"Oh, thank you so much. I hope you aren't very wet."

Tommy examined the upturned edge of his knickerbockers, and then looked into a pair of wide black eyes.

"Not a bit, hardly," he said, and he thought her cheeks were redder than any he had seen. He did not, as a rule, approve of girls, but he felt that there was a kindred spirit twinkling behind those black eyes.

"I think I must go back," said she.

"Wh--what is your name?" stammered Tommy, with a curious desire to prolong the time.

She laughed.

"I think you might tell me yours."

"I got your hat for you."

"You liked getting it."

"You'd have lost it, if I hadn't gone in."

"No, I shouldn't. I could have got it myself. I'm not afraid."

Tommy capitulated.

"They call me Tommy Wideawake," he said.

"What a funny name. I thought you looked rather sleepy, when I saw you on the bank just now."

"You looked jolly untidy," retorted Tommy irrelevantly.

"Are you the browny whitey colonel's son?"

Tommy spoke with aroused dignity.

"You must not call my father names," he said.

"I'm not. I think he's a splendid brave man, and I always call him that, because his face is so brown and his moustache and hair so very white."

Tommy blushed. Then he said very slowly, and with some hesitation, for to no one before had he confided so much:

"I think he is the bravest--the bravest officer in the whole army."

Then his eyes fell, and he looked confusedly at his toes.

The stream was rippling softly over the shallows, full of its young dream.

Then--

"I'm Madge Chantrey," said a shy voice.

Tommy looked up eagerly.

"Why, then I must have seen you in church--but you looked so different you know, so jolly--jolly different."

Madge laughed.

"I've often seen you, in an eton jacket, with a very big collar, and you always went to sleep in the sermon, and forgot to get up when the vicar said 'And now.'"

Tommy grinned.

Then an inspiration seized him.

"I say; let's go on to the mill, an' we'll pot water-rats on the way, an' get some tea there. He's an awful good sort, is the miller. His name's Berrill, and he's ridden to London and back in a day, and it's a hundred and fifty miles, and he can carry two bags of wheat at once, and there's sure to be some rats up at Becklington End, and it's only about three o'clock--and it's such an absolutely ripping day."

He stopped and pulled up some gra.s.s.

"You might as well," he concluded, in a voice which implied that her choice was of no consequence to him.

Her black eyes danced, and she swung her hat thoughtfully round her finger.

"It would be rather nice," she said. "But there is Miss Gerald, you know; she will wonder where I am."

"Never mind. I'll bring you home."

And down the chain of water-meadows from one valley to another they wandered through the April afternoon, till the old mill-pool lay before them deep and shadowy beneath the green, wet walls. A long gleam of light lay athwart its surface, dying slowly as the sunset faded.