I wish so ardently to say."

"Can you not speak while we walk, my lord?" asked Dorothy.

I felt a bitter desire to curse the girl.

"It is difficult for me to speak while we walk," said Leicester,
cautiously taking the girl's hand; so she permitted him to lead her to the
settle under the holly bush, on the opposite side of which Madge and I
were sitting.

The earl retained the hand for a moment after he and Dorothy were seated,
but she gently drew it away and moved a little distance from his Lordship.
Still, her eyes were drooped, her head hung low, and her bosom actually
heaved as if with emotion.

"I will tell John of your shamelessness," I said to myself. "He shall feel
no more heartaches for you--you wanton huzzy."

Then Leicester poured forth his passion most eloquently. Poesy, verse, and
rhetoric all came to help him in his wooing. Now and then the girl would
respond to his ardor with "Please, my lord," or "I pray you, my lord," and
when he would try to take her hand she would say, "I beg you, my lord, do
not." But Leicester evidently thought that the "do not" meant "do," for
soon he began to steal his arm about her waist, and she was so slow in
stopping him that I thought she was going to submit. She, however, arose
gently to her feet and said:--

"My lord, I must return to the Hall. I may not longer remain here with
you."

The earl caught her hand and endeavored to kiss it, but she adroitly
prevented him, and stepping out into the path, started slowly toward the
Hall. She turned her head slightly toward Leicester in a mute but eloquent
invitation, and he quickly followed her.

I watched the pair walk up the terrace. They descended the steps to the
garden, and from thence they entered the Hall by way of the porch.

"Was it not very wicked in Dorothy to listen to such words from
Leicester?" asked Madge. "I do not at all understand her."

Madge, of course, knew only a part of what had happened, and a very small
part at that, for she had not seen Dorothy. Madge and I returned to the
Hall, and we went at once to Dorothy's room, hoping to see her, and
intending to tell her our opinion of the shameless manner in which she had
acted.

Dorothy was in her room alone when we entered. She clapped her hands, ran
to the door, bolted it, and bounded back toward us.

"I have the greatest news to tell you," she cried laughingly,--"the
greatest news and the greatest sport of which you ever heard. My lord
Leiceste