ng with me all this time,
Sarah? They--everybody told me--that you were only playing--but I've
never believed it."

"I _meant_ to play with you," said Sarah, turning, if possible, even
redder than before; "I meant to teach you a lesson, and throw you
over. And the more I saw of you, the more I didn't repent. You, who
dared to think yourself superior to your mother; and, indeed, to
any woman! Kings are enslaved by women, you know," said Miss Sarah,
tossing her head, "and statesmen are led by them, though they oughtn't
to be. And--and poets worship them, or how could they write poetry?
There would be nothing to write about. It is reserved for boys and
savages to look down upon them."

She sat scornfully down again on her boulder, and put her hands to her
loosened hair.

"I can't think why a scene always makes one's hair untidy," said
Sarah, suddenly bursting into a laugh; but the whiteness of Peter's
face frightened her, and she had some ado to laugh naturally. "And I
am lost without a looking-glass," she added, in a somewhat quavering
tone of bravado.

She pulled out a great tortoise-shell dagger, and a heavy mass of
glorious red-gold hair fell about her piquant face, and her pretty
milk-white throat, down to her waist.

"Dear me!" said Miss Sarah. She looked around. Near the bubbling
brook, dark peaty hollows held little pools, which offered Nature's
mirror for her toilet.

She went to the side of the stream and knelt down. Her plump white
hands dexterously twisted and secured the long burnished coil. Then
she glanced slyly round at Peter.

He lay face downwards on the grass. His shoulders heaved. The pretty
picture Miss Sarah's coquetry presented had been lost upon the foolish
youth.

She returned in a leisurely manner to her place, and leaning her chin
on her hand, and her elbow on her knee, regarded him thoughtfully.

"Where was I? Yes, I remember. It is a lesson for a girl, Peter, never
to marry a boy or a savage."

"Sarah!" said Peter. He raised his face and looked at her. His eyes
were red, but he was too miserable to care; he was, as she had said,
only a boy. "Sarah, you're not in earnest! You can't be! I--I know I
ought to be angry." Miss Sarah laughed derisively. "Yes, you laugh,
for you know too well I can't be angry with you. I love you!" said
Peter, passionately, "though you are--as cruel as though I've not had
pretty well as much to bear to-day, as I know how to stand. First,
John Crewys, and