A last advance, a last
cautious pause, was made by the ducks. The bailiff touched the strings,
the weighed net-work fell vertically into the water, and closed the
decoy. There, by dozens and dozens, were the ducks, caught by means of
their own curiosity--with nothing but a little dog for a bait! In a
few hours afterward they were all dead ducks on their way to the London
market.

As the last act in the curious comedy of the decoy came to its end,
little Mary laid her hand on my shoulder, and, raising herself on
tiptoe, whispered in my ear:

"George, come home with me. I have got something to show you that is
better worth seeing than the ducks."

"What is it?"

"It's a surprise. I won't tell you."

"Will you give me a kiss?"

The charming little creature put her slim sun-burned arms round my neck,
and answered:

"As many kisses as you like, George."

It was innocently said, on her side. It was innocently done, on mine.
The good easy bailiff, looking aside at the moment from his ducks,
discovered us pursuing our boy-and-girl courtship in each other's arms.
He shook his big forefinger at us, with something of a sad and doubting
smile.

"Ah, Master George, Master George!" he said. "When your father comes
home, do you think he will approve of his son and heir kissing his
bailiff's daughter?"

"When my father comes home," I answered, with great dignity, "I shall
tell him the truth. I shall say I am going to marry your daughter."

The bailiff burst out laughing, and looked back again at his ducks.

"Well, well!" we heard him say to himself. "They're only children.
There's no call, poor things, to part them yet awhile."

Mary and I had a great dislike to be called children. Properly
understood, one of us was a lady aged ten, and the other was a gentleman
aged thirteen. We left the good bailiff indignantly, and went away
together, hand in hand, to the cottage.

CHAPTER II. TWO YOUNG HEARTS.

"HE is growing too fast," said the doctor to my mother; "and he is
getting a great deal too clever for a boy at his age. Remove him from
school, ma'am, for six months; let him run about in the open air
at home; and if you find him with a book in his hand, take it away
directly. There is my prescription."

Those words decided my fate in life.

In obedience to the doctor's advice, I was left an idle boy--without
brothers, sisters, or companions of my own age--to roam about the
grounds of our lonely country-house. The ba