ial one."

"Ah, my son, have I not absolved you already? What have I to do with
fair faces? Nevertheless, I will come, both to show you that I trust
you, and it may be to help towards reclaiming a heretic, and saving a
lost soul: who knows?"

So the two set out together; and, as it was appointed, they had just got
to the top of the hill between Chapel and Stow mill, when up the lane
came none other than Mistress Rose Salterne herself, in all the glories
of a new scarlet hood, from under which her large dark languid eyes
gleamed soft lightnings through poor Eustace's heart and marrow. Up
to them she tripped on delicate ankles and tiny feet, tall, lithe, and
graceful, a true West-country lass; and as she passed them with a
pretty blush and courtesy, even Campian looked back at the fair innocent
creature, whose long dark curls, after the then country fashion, rolled
down from beneath the hood below her waist, entangling the soul of
Eustace Leigh within their glossy nets.

"There!" whispered he, trembling from head to foot. "Can you excuse me
now?"

"I had excused you long ago;" said the kindhearted father. "Alas, that
so much fair red and white should have been created only as a feast for
worms!"

"A feast for gods, you mean!" cried Eustace, on whose common sense the
naive absurdity of the last speech struck keenly; and then, as if to
escape the scolding which he deserved for his heathenry--

"Will you let me return for a moment? I will follow you: let me go!"

Campian saw that it was of no use to say no, and nodded. Eustace darted
from his side, and running across a field, met Rose full at the next
turn of the road.

She started, and gave a pretty little shriek.

"Mr. Leigh! I thought you had gone forward."

"I came back to speak to you, Rose--Mistress Salterne, I mean."

"To me?"

"To you I must speak, tell you all, or die!" And he pressed up close to
her. She shrank back, somewhat frightened.

"Do not stir; do not go, I implore you! Rose, only hear me!" And
fiercely and passionately seizing her by the hand, he poured out the
whole story of his love, heaping her with every fantastic epithet of
admiration which he could devise.

There was little, perhaps, of all his words which Rose had not heard
many a time before; but there was a quiver in his voice, and a fire in
his eye, from which she shrank by instinct.

"Let me go!" she said; "you are too rough, sir!"

"Ay!" he said, seizing now both her hands,