arah; "but, of course,
my maid came ages ago, as usual. But if there was anything you
particularly wanted to say--you know how tiresome she is, keeping as
close as she can, to listen to every word--why, it would be better to
say it now. I am not in such a hurry as all that."

"You know very well I want to say a thousand things," said Peter,
vehemently. "I have been walking up and down till I thought I should
go mad, making conversation with John Crewys." Peter was honestly
unaware that it was John who had made the conversation. "Has Lady
Tintern come to take you away, Sarah? And why did she call on my
mother this afternoon, the very moment she arrived?"

"Your mother would be the proper person to tell you that. How should I
know?" said Sarah, reprovingly. "Have you asked her?"

"How can I ask her?" said Peter. His voice trembled. "I've not spoken
to her once--except before other people--since John Crewys told
me--what I told you this afternoon. I've scarcely seen any one since I
left you. I wandered off for a beastly walk in the woods by myself,
as miserable as any fellow would be, after all you said to me. Do you
think I--I've got no feelings?"

His voice sounded very forlorn, and Sarah felt remorseful. After all,
Peter was her comrade and her oldest friend, as well as her lover. At
the very bottom of her heart there lurked a remnant of her childish
admiration for him, which would, perhaps, never quite be extinguished.
The boy who got into scrapes, and was thrashed by his father, and who
did not mind; the boy who vaulted over fences she had to climb or
creep through; who went fishing, and threw a fly with so light and
sure a hand, and filled his basket, whilst she wound her line about
her skirts, and caught her hook, and whipped the stream in vain.
He had climbed a tall fir-tree once, and brought down in safety a
weeping, shame-stricken little girl with a red pigtail, whose daring
had suddenly failed her; and he had gone up the tree himself like a
squirrel afterwards, and fetched her the nest she coveted. Nor did he
ever taunt her with her cowardice nor revert to his own exploit; but
this was because Peter forgot the whole adventure in an hour, though
Sarah remembered it to the end of her life. He climbed so many trees,
and went birds'-nesting every spring to his mother's despair.

Sarah thought of him wandering all the afternoon in his own woods,
lonely and mortified, listening to the popping of the guns on the