shing bells began. They shook the air, the earth,
the ancient stones, the very nests upon the trees, and sent the rooks
flying black as ink against the yellow buttercups in the meadow.

"We must go, in a few minutes," said Robinette. "Oh, will you pull me
some of those white roses up there?"

Lavendar swung himself up and drawing down a bunch he pulled off two
white buds.

"Will you take them?" he asked, holding them out to her. Then suddenly
he said, very low and very humbly, "Oh, take me too; take me,
Robinette, though no man was ever so unworthy!"

Robinette laid the roses on the wall beside her.

"For my part," she said, turning to Lavendar with a little laugh that
was half a sob; "for my part, I like giving better than taking!" She
put both her hands in his and looked into his face. "Here is my
life," she said simply. "I want to belong to you, to help you, to live
by your side."

"I oughtn't to take you at your word," he said, his voice choked with
emotion. "You are far too good for me!"

"Hush," Robinetta answered, putting a finger on his lip; "it isn't a
question of how great you are or how wonderful: it's a question of
what we can be to each other. I'd rather have you than the Duke of
Wellington or Marcus Aurelius, and I believe you wouldn't change me
for Helen of Troy!"

"I have nothing to bring you, nothing," said Lavendar again, "nothing
but my love and my whole heart."

"If all the kingdoms of the earth were offered to me instead, I would
still take you and what you give me," Robinette answered.

Lavendar laid his cheek against her bright hair and sighed deeply. In
that sigh there passed away all former things, and behold, all things
became new. Two cuckoos answered each other from opposite banks of the
river and two hearts sang songs of joy that met and mingled and
floated upward.

Again the bells broke out overhead, filling the air with music that
had rung from them ever since just such another morning hundreds of
years before, when they rang their first peal from the church tower,
bearing the legend newly cut upon them: "Pray for the Soul of Anne de
Tracy, 1538." And Anne de Tracy's memory was forgotten--so long
forgotten--except for the bells that carried her name!

Yet in these same meadows that she must have known, spring was come
once more. The Devonshire plum trees had budded and blossomed and shed
their petals year after year, and year after year, since the bells
first swung in the a