ou don't think that changes will come over us, or that we shall
be separated, Raymond?'

'Certainly not; but we may as well be on the safe side. For instance,
if I were to go out and meet with an enchanter, and he were to turn me
into a dwarf, and then I were to come back to you, how would you know
me except by my half of the guinea?'

'I should trust my heart for that,' said Rosamund, softly. 'Still, we
will wear the halves, so that everyone may see that we are but half
ourselves when we are not together.'

This being settled, Rosamund fetched a hatchet, and Raymond put the
guinea on a stool, and, with one strong blow, made it fly into two
exact halves. Then he drilled a hole through Rosamund's half, and hung
it round her neck by a piece of pink ribbon; and as for his own half,
he strung it on the silken cord that he had always worn. So their
betrothal was confirmed.

Just at this moment half a dozen of Rosamund's old suitors came
trooping into the bar, and began calling for milk like a herd of
calves. Then the lovers looked in each other's faces and smiled, and
bade each other farewell very tenderly. Raymond went out through the
cowyard; and Rosamund returned to the bar, where she served out fresh
milk and thought about the half-guinea that was hidden in her bosom.

CHAPTER III.

THE GOLDEN DWARF.

Raymond strolled away towards the river. He wanted to think it all
over. His betrothal was a sort of surprise to him. He had loved
Rosamund, in a meditative way, so long that he had got used to not
expecting anything more; but now, on the spur of the moment, he had
told his love and received the pledge of hers, and it was all settled.
He was happy, of course, for he believed Rosamund to be the prettiest
and the best girl in the world. Still, he did not wish quite to give
up the hope that something might happen to make their life more
splendid. He said to himself that it was only for Rosamund's sake he
hoped this. Perhaps that was the reason he hoped it so much.

The path down to the river was narrow and winding; it lay between
hawthorn hedges white with blossoms. It ended at the ford, where
willow trees bowed down over the current. One of these trees had been
cut down on the day Raymond was born. The stump made a sort of chair,
in which Raymond had spent many a summer hour, musing over the flowing
water, or lifting his eyes to gaze thoughtfully at the distant city.
He called the willow-stump his throne; an