"I am late," says she. Her breath is coming quickly. Evidently she has run a great part of the way.

"I thought you were never coming," returns he, with the lover-like ardour he finds it so easy to assume. As a fact, however, he had been feeling a little uncertain as to her coming at all, for the past five minutes, and, to his own surprise, a little impatient. As has been said, she amuses him, and has dropped into his short stay in this dull country life as a relief to the monotony of it. And she is really very pretty and very young, and he will soon be going away.

"To love and to ride away" is no new thing with him and, of course, this child

He doesn't believe in broken hearts himself, and-well, lightly come, lightly go, is doubtless her creed as well as his -or will be, later on.

He means no harm to her; he can swear that; and she, dear little thing. . . Her eyes so loving when calm, so much even lovelier when enraged. He likes to enrage her, if only to see the quick lights and shades in them-the fierce anger, fading to the wonderful softness of forgiveness. To mark these effects delights him, and gives a zest to his meetings with her.

Once he is gone, however, she will, of course, forget him, as many another has had to do. Perhaps he miscalculates a little this time-not allowing for the touch of fire in Maden's blood caught from her French mother.

"Well, I couldn't help it," says she. Then suddenly she pulls the little crimson woollen cap she is wearing from her dark head and flings it to the ground. The gesture is graceful, passionate, suggestive of unrestrained delight.

"Oh, the joy-the freedom!" cries she, as if in ecstasy. "I feel like one escaped. And the run here, all through the scented air, and with the mad rush of the river in my ears. Ah, I felt as if I could rush with it-anywhere-anywhere."

"That's rather unkind, isn't it," says Captain Fenton, gazing at her with unfeigned admiration. Standing there, beneath the branching trees, with her small hands clasped against her dusky head, and her eyes alight, she looks like some sylvan sprite-all fire and life. Like a red spot of blood her little cap lies on the green sward a foot or so away from her. "If you had gone with the river, what should I have done?"

"Ah, I shouldn't have gone," says she. She laughs-her white teeth gleam.

"And your headache?"

"Headache? Had I a headache? Ever? I haven't one now, anyway, or," laughing gaily, almost wildly, "a head, either, I think."

"Maden!" He catches her hands suddenly, and draws her to him, but she slips lightly away, and stands back, laughing always, and with a wonderful coquetry in her air.

"Do you know how pretty you are?" says Fenton, quickly, eagerly.

"Pretty! I hate the word," says she, pouting. "Ah, to be tall, and fair, and-beautiful!"

"Like Cecil Fairfax," mimicking her tone lightly. "Well, you can't be tall and fair, you know; Nature's forbidden. that."

"Yes, I know"-gloomily. All her charming gaiety of a moment ago is now overclouded. She stands now-so quickly changed are her moods—a little image of despair.

says he, and pauses as if to tantalize her.

"But-
"Yes," eagerly.

"You can be beautiful-you are."

"But not like her. I have not her charm, her grace." "A thousand-fold more," cries he, with sudden vehemence that astonishes even himself.

"Ah!" Her voice rises triumphantly. And now she gives him her hands, and comes to him with all the late joyousness intensified in every feature of her vivid face, in every action of her small lissome body.

Some emotion, stronger than he has known for a long time, transitory, no doubt, but real while it lasts, possesses Fenton now. He would have drawn her to his heart, but, after a brief moment that looked like yielding, she again frees herself lightly from his grasp, and with a little charming gesture forbids him

to come nearer.

"Sit down here and let us talk," says she, indicating the fallen trunk of a tree near her. "This bazaar seems to be absorbing everybody's thoughts."

"Not mine," says he, with a downward glance at her, a glance she catches and returns with a smile that is warm as sunshine.

"It ought, however."

"How? Oh, I see. You are to take part in it. You will help at Lady Maria's stall?"

Yes. And we are all to be in fancy costume."

She looks so very fanciful at the present moment, sitting there in the dusky twilight on the old tree, that it occurs to Fenton that she hardly wants accessories for the part she is going to take at the bazaar.

"What are you going as? A fairy?"

"No, no, nothing so frivolous."

"A pixie, then?"

"Wrong again. Fancy Lady Maria's face if you asked her that question.'

"Ah, you ought to be a pixie," says he. "It would suit you."

"Why?" She moves a little nearer to him; blinking her pretty lids with their long, dark eyelashes rapidly, so curious has she grown.

you

know ?"

"Don't
No, indeed."

"Well, come closer, and I'll tell you. It isn't safe to speak out loud about pixies in wooded places. Now." He has secured her hand, and is holding it in both his, whilst she with widened eyes is looking into his face. "Because from all time pixies have drawn from men their very hearts-and souls."

"No, no," says she; she drags her hand out of his, as if affrighted, and then quite as suddenly pushes it back again. "Oh, nonsense. And whose soul, whose heart? Oh, no,

no, no."

There is something childish in the expostulation. Is she to be an evil influence in his destiny? That he loves her she hopes, she fears. Her eyes are full of tears as she looks at

him.

"I shall not be a pixie at the bazaar, or at any other time," says she; "and yet

She hesitates, with a little gesture turns his face to hers. "And yet I would I could be one," says she, "to turn your soul to mine."

Softly, softly blows the tender night winds through the trees, softly too runs the river down below. Above in the branches the birds are nesting, little tiny cheeps from unseen recesses making the air sweet with a music magical. Down

с

there the river is rushing, pale grey in its hue. Whilst above the sky is grey too, sky and water thus making one exquisite blend.

"Behind the western bars

The shrouded day retreats,
And unperceived the stars
Steal to their sovran seats."

"Maden," says he, in a low tone, "do you ever think?" "Ah, too much and too often. But we will not think now. It"-frowning "troubles me. Well, I am not going to be a pixie, you see.'

"I'm not sure."

She laughs, and rubs her cheek against his shoulder.

"Oh, no. Only a French peasant. Odd, Lady Maria's choosing that costume for her stall, eh ?"

"Why? it would suit you better than anything else, if you can't be my pixie. And you could wear that little red cap." He points to where it is lying in the light of the young May moon that now has arisen in all its glory, and is flooding even this tree-haunted place with light. That suits you, anyway." "You think I would look well as a French peasant, then?" A frown has settled on her brow.

"It is an effective costume, and

"Appropriate?" She is frowning still.

Why, what's the matter now?" asks Fenton.

"Oh, nothing, only I hate to look like a Frenchwoman." "Well, you don't," says he, laughing.

"Still"-she lifts her eyes with evident reluctance to his'my mother was French."

"And your father?"

"English."

"The happiest combination of all," says Fenton, laughing. "That's what makes you

"Yes?" She turns to him; again the glowing light of happy expectancy is in her eyes.

What you are.

"Oh, but that but that!" cries she. She rises impulsively, and with her hands separated, but clenched, looks at him. "Tell me."

"The sweetest-the dearest thing on earth," says Fenton, forgetting all things-prudence-to-morrow, even—with those dark eyes on his.

"Ah!" She runs to him. thought that."

"If I might think that you

"You may," says he, in a low, impassioned tone, and for the moment he believes in his own mood. His arms are round her. He stoops over her, but even at this instant, with one small but firm hand upon his breast, she pushes him from her.

"No, you mustn't kiss me," says she, her eyes on his, her breath coming quickly. "No." And then all suddenly, as if angry with herself for her cold-heartedness, she relents a little-a very

little.

"Well, only just my eyes, my hair-not my lips. Now, remember!"

It is strange, even amusing, but he can see that she really means it. She is always amusing! But what is still more strange is the fact that Fenton respects her meaning, and it is only on her hair and her eyes his kisses rest. Upon her lips,

not one.

CHAPTER VI.

"We'll prove it just, with treacherous bait,
To make the preying trout our prey."

"

TO-DAY, as Mr. Amyot acknowledges with disgust as he springs out of bed, is a scorcher." Above, indeed, Sol is running amuck, and the solemn earth beneath is suffering.

"Awful rot, thinking of fishing on a day like this," he tells himself further on. Yet having arranged with Carry Desmond to meet her at the Droon at a certain hour, he most unwillingly dons his armour, fishing-boots, basket, rod, and book with the sacred flies, and starts for the rendezvous.

Up here amongst the hills, where the river leaps gaily from rock to rock, the shadows are lying and the air is almost cool. The tall trees on either edge of it, with their hanging branches, resist the sun, and here and there in the darkened pools some fishing may be hoped for. The day is exquisite, and full of fresh young breathings. It is, indeed, hardly possible to move without taking the life of some small perfect thing. The