"What an extraordinary girl you are! You say things on purpose to
provoke me. Nobody ever does that; they are only too glad to keep me in
a good temper."

"If you are like that, Sir, I had better run away. My father will be
home in about an hour, and he might think that you had no business
here."

"I! No business upon my own land! This place must be bewitched, I think.
There is a witch upon the moors, I know, who can take almost any shape;
but--but they say she is three hundred years of age, or more."

"Perhaps, then, I am bewitched," said Insie; "or why should I stop to
talk with you, who are only a rude boy, after all, even according to
your own account?"

"Well, you can go if you like. I suppose you live in that queer little
place down there?"

"The house is quite good enough for me and my father and mother and
brother Maunder. Good-by; and please never to come here again."

"You don't understand me. I have made you cry. Oh, Insie, let me have
hold of your hand. I would rather make anybody cry than you. I never
liked anybody so before."

"Cry, indeed! Who ever heard me cry? It is the way you splashed the
water up. I am not in the habit of crying for a stranger. Good-by, now;
and go to your great people. You say that you are bad; and I fear it is
too true."

"I am not bad at all. It is only what everybody says, because I never
want to please them. But I want to please you. I would give anything to
do it; if you would only tell me how."

The girl having cleverly dried her eyes, poured all their bright beauty
upon him, and the heart of the youth was enlarged with a new, very
sweet, and most timorous feeling. Then his dark eyes dropped, and he
touched her gently, and only said, "Don't go away."

"But I must go away," Insie answered, with a blush, and a look as of
more tears lurking in her eyes. "I have stopped too long; I must go away
at once."

"But when may I come again? I will hold you, and fight for you with
everybody in the world, unless you tell me when to come again."

"Hush! I am quite ashamed to hear you talk so. I am a poor girl, and you
a great young gentleman."

"Never mind that. That has nothing to do with it. Would you like to make
me miserable, and a great deal more wicked than I ever was before? Do
you hate me so much as all that, Insie?"

"No. You have been very kind to me. Only my father would be angry, I am
sure; and my brother Maunder is dreadful. They all go away every other
Fri