rs she was
holding up to sniff at--a clean sober little maid, with a very touching
upward look of trust. Her companion was a strong, active boy of perhaps
fourteen, and he, too, was serious--his deep-set, blacklashed eyes looked
down at her with a queer protective wonder; the while he explained in a
soft voice broken up between two ages, that exact process which bees
adopt to draw honey out of flowers. Once or twice this hoarse but
charming voice became quite fervent, when she had evidently failed to
follow; it was as if he would have been impatient, only he knew he must
not, because she was a lady and younger than himself, and he loved her.

They sat down just below my nook, and began to count the petals of a
chicory flower, and slowly she nestled in to him, and he put his arm
round her. Never did I see such sedate, sweet lovering, so trusting on
her part, so guardianlike on his. They were like, in miniature---though
more dewy,--those sober couples who have long lived together, yet whom
one still catches looking at each other with confidential tenderness, and
in whom, one feels, passion is atrophied from never having been in use.

Long I sat watching them in their cool communion, half-embraced, talking
a little, smiling a little, never once kissing. They did not seem shy of
that; it was rather as if they were too much each other's to think of
such a thing. And then her head slid lower and lower down his shoulder,
and sleep buttoned the lids over those chicory-blue eyes. How careful he
was, then, not to wake her, though I could see his arm was getting stiff!
He still sat, good as gold, holding her, till it began quite to hurt me
to see his shoulder thus in chancery. But presently I saw him draw his
arm away ever so carefully, lay her head down on the grass, and lean
forward to stare at something. Straight in front of them was a magpie,
balancing itself on a stripped twig of thorn-tree. The agitating bird,
painted of night and day, was making a queer noise and flirting one wing,
as if trying to attract attention. Rising from the twig, it circled,
vivid and stealthy, twice round the tree, and flew to another a dozen
paces off. The boy rose; he looked at his little mate, looked at the
bird, and began quietly to move toward it; but uttering again its queer
call, the bird glided on to a third thorn-tree. The boy hesitated
then--but once more the bird flew on, and suddenly dipped over the hill.
I saw the boy brea