re his horse,
making the beast come nigh to unseating him; another, coming upon her and
the Widow Constance's Barbara gathering fagots in the November woods, had
tossed to each a sixpence; a third, on vestry business with the minister,
had touched her beneath the chin, and sworn that an she were not so brown
she were fair; a fourth, lying hidden upon the bank of the creek, had
caught her boat head as she pushed it into the reeds, and had tried to
kiss her. They had certain ways, had gentlemen, but she knew no great harm
of them. There was one, now--but he would be like a prince. When at
eventide the sky was piled with pale towering clouds, and she looked, as
she often looked, down the river, toward the bay and the sea beyond, she
always saw this prince that she had woven--warp of memory, woof of
dreams--stand erect in the pearly light. There was a gentleman indeed!

As to the possessor of the title now slowly and steadily making his way
toward her she was in a mere state of wonder. It was not possible that he
had lost his way; but if so, she was sorry that, in losing it, he had
found the slender zigzag of her path. A trustful child,--save where Hugon
was concerned,--she was not in the least afraid, and being of a friendly
mind looked at the approaching figure with shy kindliness, and thought
that he must have come from a distant part of the country. She thought
that had she ever seen him before she would have remembered it.

Upon the outskirts of the ring, clear of the close embrace of flowering
bush and spreading vine. Haward paused, and looked with smiling eyes at
this girl of the woods, this forest creature that, springing from the
earth, had set its back against the tree.

"Tarry awhile," he said. "Slip not yet within the bark. Had I known, I
should have brought oblation of milk and honey."

"This is the thicket between Fair View and the glebe lands," said Audrey,
who knew not what bark of tree and milk and honey had to do with the case.
"Over yonder, sir, is the road to the great house. This path ends here;
you must go back to the edge of the wood, then turn to the south"--

"I have not lost my way," answered Haward, still smiling. "It is pleasant
here in the shade, after the warmth of the open. May I not sit down upon
the leaves and talk to you for a while? I came out to find you, you
know."

As he spoke, and without waiting for the permission which he asked, he
crossed the rustling leaves, and threw himself