e key that had unlocked
her own heart. Now she knew them all,--the heroes, the fairy princes,
the knights errant; perceived that they were real and live,
recognized their traits and manners, their very faces, in that
bold, free, strong young rebel; he was Orlando, and Lovelace, and
Prince Charming, and AEneas, and Tom Jones, and King Harry the Fifth,
and young Marlowe, and even Captain Macheath (she had read forbidden
books guilelessly, in course of reading everything at hand), and
Roderick Random, and Captain Plume, and all the conquering, gallant,
fine young fellows, at the absurd weakness of whose sweethearts she
had marvelled beyond measure. She understood that weakness now, and
knew, too, why those sweethearts had, in the first delicious hours
of their weakness, trembled and dropped their eyes before those young
gentlemen. For, as she mentally beheld his image, she felt her own
cheeks glow, and in imagination was fain to drop her own eyes
before his bold, unquailing look. She wondered, with confusion and
unseen blushes, how she would face him at their next meeting, and
felt that she must not, could not, be the one to cause that
meeting. Right surely had this fair castle, that had withstood
many a long siege, fallen now at a single onslaught, and that but
a sham onslaught. The haughty princess in her tower had not longed
for the prince, but the prince had arrived, not to her rescue, but to
the taming of her. And alas! the prince, whom she fondly thought her
lover, was no more lover of her than of the picture of her female
ancestor on his bedroom wall!

She gave no thought to consequences, and, as for Jack Colden, she
simply, by power of will, kept him out of her mind.

It was three days before Peyton could walk about his room, and two
days more before he felt sufficient confidence in his wounded leg to
come down-stairs and take his meals with the household. And even then,
refusing a crutch, he used a stick in moving about. During the five
days when he kept his room, he was waited on alternately by Sam and
Cuff, who served at his bath and brought his food; and occasionally
Molly carried to him at dinner some belated delicacy or forgotten
dish. Williams, too, visited him daily, and expressed a kind of
professional satisfaction at the uninterrupted healing of the wound,
which the steward treated with the mysterious applications known to
home surgery. Williams lent his own clean linen to Harry, while
Harry's underwen