“Please let me help you to pick up your pictures.” Miss Dingle did not answer, and Evelyn feared for a moment that she had offended her. “Won’t you let me help you to pick up your pictures?”
“Yes,” she said, “you may help me to pick them up, but you must be very quick.”
“But why must I be quick? Are you in such a very great hurry?”
Miss Dingle seemed uncertain of her own thoughts, and to reassure her, Evelyn asked her if she would not like to walk with her in the orchard.
“Oh,” she said, looking at Evelyn shyly—it was a sort of child-like curiosity, “I dare not go into the orchard to-day.... I brought these pictures to keep him from me. I know that he is about.”
“Who is about?”
“I’m afraid he might hurt me.”
“But who would hurt you?”
“Well,” she said cautiously, “perhaps he’d be af
