e precipice."

"She is married also, to her cousin, but I don't know that she has any
children yet, and I never pulled her up any precipice. It was a man I
pulled, a very heavy one. My arm isn't quite right yet."

"Oh!" said Isobel. Then with another sudden change of voice she went
on. "Now tell me all about yourself, Godfrey. There must be such lots
to say, and I long to hear."

So he told her, and she told him of herself, and they talked and talked
till the shadows of advancing night began to close around them.
Suddenly Godfrey looked at his watch, of which he could only just see
the hands.

"My goodness!" he said, "it is half-past seven."

"Well, what about it? It doesn't matter when I dine, for I have come
down alone here for a few days, a week perhaps, to get the house ready
for my father and his friends."

"Yes, but my father dines at seven, and if there is one thing he hates
it is being kept waiting for dinner."

She looked as though she thought that it did not much matter whether or
no Mr. Knight waited for his dinner, then said:

"Well, you can come up to the Hall and dine with me."

"I think I had better not," he answered. "You see, we are getting on so
well together--I mean my father and I, and I don't want to begin a row
again. He would hate it."

"You mean, Godfrey, that he would hate your dining with me. Well, that
is true, for he always loathed me like poison, and I don't think he is
a man to change his mind. So perhaps you had better go. Do you think we
shall be allowed to see each other again?" she added with sarcasm.

"Of course. Let's meet here to-morrow at eleven. My father is going to
a Diocesan meeting and won't be back till the evening. So we might
spend the day together if you have nothing better to do."

"Let me see. No, I have no engagement. You see, I only came down half
an hour before we met in the church."

Then they rose from their willow log and stood looking at each other, a
very proper pair. Something welled up in him and burst from his lips.

"How beautiful you have grown," he said.

She laughed a little, very softly, and said:

"Beautiful! _I_? Those Alpine snows affect the sight, don't they? I
felt like that on Popocatepetl. Or is it the twilight that I have to
thank? Oh! you silly old Godfrey, you must have been living among very
plain people."

"You _are_ beautiful," he replied stubbornly, "the most beautiful woman
I ever saw. You always were, and you always wil