‘ Very well,’ replied the wooer.

Two or three days passed away with great delight to Will, although a bystander might scarce have found it out. He continued to take his meals opposite Marjory, and to talk with her and gaze upon her in her father’s presence ; but he made no attempt to see her alone, nor in any other way changed his conduct towards her from what it had been since the beginning. Perhaps the girl was a little disappointed, and perhaps not unjustly ; and yet if it had been enough to be always in the thoughts of another person, and so pervade and alter his whole life, she might have been thoroughly contented. For she was never out of Will’s mind for an instant. He sat over the stream, and watched the dust of the eddy, and the poised fish, and straining weeds ; he wandered out alone into the purple even, with all the blackbirds piping round him in the wood ; he rose early in the morning, and saw the sky turn from grey to gold, and the light leap upon the hill-tops ; and all the while he kept wondering if he had never seen such things before, or how it was that they should look so different now. The sound of his own mill-wheel, or of the wind among the trees, confounded and charmed his heart. The most enchanting thoughts presented themselves unbidden in his mind. He was so happy that he could not sleep at night, and so restless that he could hardly sit still out of her company. And yet it seemed as if he avoided her rather than sought her out.

One day, as he was coming home from a ramble, Will found Marjory in the garden picking flowers, and as he came up with her, slackened his pace and continued walking by her side.

‘ You like flowers ? ’ he said.

‘ Indeed I love them dearly,’ she replied. ‘ Do you ? ’

‘ Why, no,’ said he, ‘ not so much. They are a very small affair, when all is done. I can fancy people caring for them greatly, but not doing as you are just now.’

‘ How ? ’ she asked, pausing and looking up at him.

‘ Plucking them,’ said he. ‘ They are a deal better off where they are, and look a deal prettier, if you go to that.’

‘ I wish to have them for my own,’ she answered, ‘ to carry them near my heart, and keep them in my room. They tempt me when they grow here ; they seem to say, “ Come and do something with us ; ” but once I have cut them and put them by, the charm is laid, and I can look at them with quite an easy heart.’

‘ You wish to possess them,’ replied Will, ‘ in order to think no more about them. It’s a bit like killing the goose with the golden eggs. It ’s a bit like killing I wished to do when I was a boy. Because I had a fancy for looking out over the plain, I wished to go down there—where I couldn’t look out over it any longer. Was not that fine reasoning ? Dear, dear, if they only thought of it, all the world would do like me ; and you would let your flowers alone, just as I stay up here in the mountains.’ Suddenly he broke off sharp. ‘ By the Lord ! ’ he cried. And when she asked him what was wrong, he turned the question off, and walked away into the house with rather a humorous expression of face.

He was silent at table ; and after the night had fallen and the stars had come out overhead, he walked up and down for hours in the courtyard and garden with an uneven pace. There was still a light in the window of Marjory’s room : one little oblong patch of orange in a world of dark blue hills and silver starlight. Will’s mind ran a great deal on the window ; but his thoughts were not very lover-like. ‘ There she is in her room,’ he thought, ‘and there are the stars overhead :—a blessing upon both ! ’ Both were good influences in his life ; both soothed and braced him in his profound contentment with the world. And what more should he desire with either ? The fat young man and his councils were so present to his mind, that he threw back his head, and, putting his hands before his mouth, shouted aloud to the populous heavens. Whether from the position of his head or the sudden strain of the exertion, he seemed to see