CHAPTER IV.

Allan Clare was just two years older than Rosamund. He was a boy of
fourteen, when he first became acquainted with her--it was soon after
she had come to reside with her grandmother at Widford.

He met her by chance one day, carrying a pitcher in her hand, which
she had been filling from a neighboring well--the pitcher was heavy,
and she seemed to be bending with its weight.

Allan insisted on carrying it for her--for he thought it a sin that a
delicate young maid, like her, should be so employed, and he stand
idle by.

Allan had a propensity to do little kind offices for everybody--but
at the sight of Rosamund Gray, his first fire was kindled--his young
mind seemed to have found an object, and his enthusiasm was from that
time forth awakened. His visits, from that day, were pretty frequent
at the cottage.

He was never happier than when he could get Rosamund to walk out with
him. He would make her admire the scenes he admired--fancy the wild
flowers he fancied--watch the clouds he was watching--and not
unfrequently repeat to her poetry which he loved, and make her love
it.

On their return, the old lady, who considered them yet as but
children, would bid Rosamund fetch Mr. Clare a glass of her
currant-wine, a bowl of new milk, or some cheap dainty which was more
welcome to Allan than the costliest delicacies of a prince's court.

The boy and girl, for they were no more at that age, grew fond of
each other--more fond than either of them suspected.

"They would sit, and sigh,
And look upon each other, and conceive
Not what they ail'd; yet something they did ail,
And yet were well--and yet they were not well;
And what was their disease, they could not tell."

And thus,

"In this first garden of their simpleness
They spent their childhood."

A circumstance had lately happened, which in some sort altered the
nature of their attachment.

Rosamund was one day reading the tale of "Julia de Roubigne"--a book
which young Clare had lent her.

Allan was standing by, looking over her, with one hand thrown round
her neck, and a finger of the other pointing to a passage in Julia's
third letter.

"Maria! in my hours of visionary indulgence, I have sometimes painted
to myself a _husband_--no matter whom--comforting me amidst the
distresses which fortune had laid upon us. I have smiled upon him
through my tears; tears, not of anguish, but of tenderness!--our
children were p