was pale and dark; his eyes were blue, hers black; he was lusty and
showed promise of broadness, she was slender.

"And what news do you bring with you now?" she said presently.

He evaded this.

"Mistress Manners?" he asked.

"Mother has a megrim," she said; "she is in her chamber." And she smiled
at him again. For these two, as is the custom of young persons who love
one another, had said not a word on either side--neither he to his
father nor she to her parents. They believed, as young persons do, that
parents who bring children into the world, hold it as a chief danger
that these children should follow their example, and themselves be
married. Besides, there is something delicious in secrecy.

"Then I will kiss you again," he said, "while there is opportunity."

* * * * *

Making love is a very good way to pass the time, above all when that
same time presses and other disconcerting things should be spoken of
instead; and this device Robin now learned. He spoke of a hundred things
that were of no importance: of the dress that she wore--russet, as it
should be, for country girls, with the loose sleeves folded back above
her elbows that she might handle the linen; her apron of coarse linen,
her steel-buckled shoes. He told her that he loved her better in that
than in her costume of state--the ruff, the fardingale, the brocaded
petticoat, and all the rest--in which he had seen her once last summer
at Babington House. He talked then, when she would hear no more of that,
of Tuesday seven-night, when they would meet for hawking in the lower
chase of the Padley estates; and proceeded then to speak of Agnes, whom
he had left on the fist of the man who had taken his mare, of her
increasing infirmities and her crimes of crabbing; and all the while he
held her left hand in both of his, and fitted her fingers between his,
and kissed them again when he had no more to say on any one point; and
wondered why he could not speak of the matter on which he had come, and
how he should tell her. And then at last she drew it from him.

"And now, my Robin," she said, "tell me what you have in your mind. You
have talked of this and that and Agnes and Jock, and Padley chase, and
you have not once looked me in the eyes since you first came in."

Now it was not shame that had held him from telling her, but rather a
kind of bewilderment. The affair might hold shame, indeed, or anger, or
sorrow, or complac