sprang into the thick of the quivering leaves
and vanished.

Kenelm moved on with a quick impatient stride, and no further words were
exchanged between him and his companion till they reached their lodging
and parted for the night.

CHAPTER III.

THE next day, towards noon, Kenelm and his visitor, walking together
along the brook-side, stopped before Izaak Walton's summer-house, and,
at Kenelm's suggestion, entered therein to rest, and more at their ease
to continue the conversation they had begun.

"You have just told me," said Kenelm, "that you feel as if a load were
taken off your heart, now that you have again met Jessie Somers, and
that you find her so changed that she is no longer the woman you loved.
As to the change, whatever it be, I own, it seems to me for the better,
in person, in manners, in character; of course I should not say this, if
I were not convinced of your perfect sincerity when you assured me that
you are cured of the old wound. But I feel so deeply interested in the
question how a fervent love, once entertained and enthroned in the heart
of a man so earnestly affectionate and so warm-blooded as yourself, can
be, all of a sudden, at a single interview, expelled or transferred into
the calm sentiment of friendship, that I pray you to explain."

"That is what puzzles me, sir," answered Tom, passing his hand over his
forehead. "And I don't know if I can explain it.

"Think over it, and try."

Tom mused for some moments and then began. "You see, sir, that I was
a very different man myself when I fell in love with Jessie Wiles, and
said, 'Come what may, that girl shall be my wife. Nobody else shall have
her.'"

"Agreed; go on."

"But while I was becoming a different man, when I thought of her--and I
was always thinking of her--I still pictured her to myself as the same
Jessie Wiles; and though, when I did see her again at Graveleigh, after
she had married--the day--"

"You saved her from the insolence of the Squire."

"She was but very recently married. I did not realize her as married. I
did not see her husband, and the difference within myself was only
then beginning. Well, so all the time I was reading and thinking, and
striving to improve my old self at Luscombe, still Jessie Wiles haunted
me as the only girl I had ever loved, ever could love; I could not
believe it possible that I could ever marry any one else. And lately I
have been much pressed to marry some one else; all my fa