f my ancestral
homestead along Severn side. The forests there will not recall the
forest here. How shall their stifling heat and towering palms, their
gaudy birds and flowers, their roaring beasts and loathly reptiles,
remind one of the cool, sweet glades, the scented bracken, the gnarled
oaks, the leaping deer, and sweet-throated songsters of home? 'Tis the
vision of the river, the tide, and the wheeling gulls that I shall see
again in the land of 'El Dorado.'"

There was a sadness and pathos in the forester's voice that went
straight to the heart of the forest maiden. The hand was on his arm
again, fluttering, trembling. "I have been very wicked!" The fluty
notes of a sweet voice were broken.

"Who says so?" demanded Johnnie harshly and loudly.

"I do; you do."

"I do not!"

"But I have hurt you."

"Why shouldn't you do so, if it pleases you? Women must aye be
meddling with pins and barbs. If they be not pricking velvets or
home-spun, they must be thrusting sharp points into those that love
them best. Why shouldst thou differ from others of thy sex?"

The young man's voice was bitter; the barbs still rankled. They had
been long in the wounds they had made, and there was fiery
inflammation. How often had he told the maid that she was like none
other of her sex; that she was peerless--stood alone! The memory of
former passionate declarations flashed across the minds of them both,
and both sighed down into silence.

"Wilt thou not forgive me?"

"Why didst thou flout me, Dolly?"

"Just a maid's foolish temper. Think how full of whimsies we women be.
Men be not so; they have strength denied to us, the weaker vessel."
(Johnnie's face was visibly softening. Dolly sighed with renewed hope,
and went on.) "I was hurt because thou didst plan and resolve to go to
the Indies without ever a word to me. I was not thought on. The Queen
moves a finger, and straightway thou art fashioning wings to take thee
to the ends of the earth. 'Twas thy duty so to do, but why treat me as
a chit or child of no account? Thy head was ever bobbing against that
of Master Jeffreys, or pouring plans into the one ear of Paignton Rob.
'Mum' was the word if ye did but catch the rustle of my gown. Thou
hadst vowed to share thy life with me; yet there did ye sit, like
conspirators, planning momentous issues in life, with never a chance
for me to utter 'Yea' or 'Nay.' Was that just?"

"I told thee of my resolve as soon as I