igeons were cooing
themselves into a doze; the horse's hoofs rang with a pleasant
clearness on the stones as he was led to his cool stable. Her heart
throbbing with excess of delight, Jane pushed back the diamond-paned
casement of her bedroom, the same room she had occupied last year and
the year before, and buried her face in clematis. Then the tea that
Mrs. Pammenter had made ready;--how delicious everything tasted! how
white the cloth was! how fragrant the cut flowers in the brown jug!

But Michael had found the journey a greater tax upon his strength than
he anticipated. Whilst Sidney and Jane talked merrily over the
tea-table the old man was thinking. 'Another year they will come
without me,' and he smiled just to hide his thoughts. In the evening he
smoked his pipe on a garden-seat, for the most part silent, and at
sunset he was glad to go up to his chamber.

Jane was renewing her friendship with the Pammenters' eldest girl, an
apple-checked, red-haired, ungraceful, but good-natured lass of
sixteen. Their voices sounded from all parts of the garden and the
farm-yard, Jane's clear-throated laugh contrasting with the rougher
utterance of her companion. After supper, in the falling of the dusk,
Sidney strolled away from the gossiping circle within-doors, and found
a corner of the garden whence there was a view of wooded hillside
against the late glow of the heavens. Presently he heard footsteps, and
through the leafage of a tree that shadowed him he saw Jane looking
this way and that, as if she sought some one. Her dress was a light
calico, and she held in her hand a rough garden hat, the property of
Miss Pammenter. Sidney regarded her for some moments, then called her
by name. She could not see him at first, and looked about anxiously. He
moved a branch of the tree and again called her; whereupon she ran
forward.

'I thought perhaps you'd gone up the hill,' she said, resting her arms
on the wall by which he was standing.

Then they kept silence, enjoying the sweetness of the hour.
Differently, it is true; for Kirkwood's natural sensitiveness had been
developed and refined by studies of which Jane had no conception.
Imperfect as his instruction remained, the sources of spiritual
enjoyment were open to him, and with all his feeling there blended that
reflective bitterness which is the sad privilege of such as he. Jane's
delight was as simple as the language in which she was wont to express
herself. She felt infin