sed, for Dr. Hervey's dinner-hour was
over. And yet they both agreed it was the most pleasant hour they had
ever spent.

CHAPTER V.

THE RECONCILIATION.

It was, of course, the old story; there were one or two meetings by the
mill-stream, a morning spent together in some distant hay-field, an
afternoon in the woods, and then the mischief was done--they loved each
other.

"Alas, how easily things go wrong--
A sigh too deep or a kiss too long;
Then follows a mist and a weeping rain--
And life is never the same again."

It soon became not merely a habit but a necessity for them to meet every
day. Farmer Noel understood perfectly well the art of tilling the
ground, of sowing the crops, of making the earth productive, but he knew
less than a child of the care and watchfulness his young niece required.
He contented himself by asking where she had been; he never seemed to
imagine that she had had a companion. He saw her growing more and more
beautiful, with new loveliness on her face, with new light in her eyes,
with a thousand charms growing on her, but he never thought of love or
danger--in fact, above the hay-making and the wheat, Farmer Noel did not
think at all.

She had gone into the glowing heart of fairyland--all the old life was
left far behind; she did not even seem to remember that she had been
restless and discontented; that in her soul she had revolted fiercely
against her fate; that she had disliked her life and longed for anything
that would change it; all that was forgotten; the golden glamour of love
had fallen over her, and everything was changed. He was young--this
brave, generous, gallant lover of hers--only twenty, with a heart full
of romance. He fairly worshiped the proud, beautiful girl who carried
herself with the stately grace of a young queen. He had fallen in love
after the fashion of his age--madly, recklessly, blindly--ready to go
mad or to die for his love; after the fashion of his age and sex he
loved her all the more because of her half-cold reserve, her indomitable
pride, her haughty rejection of all flattery.

Young girls do not always know the secret of their power; a little
reserve goes further than the most loving words. Leone's pride attracted
Lord Chandos quite as much as her beauty. The first little quarrel they
had was an outburst of pride from her; they had been strolling through
the sunniest part of Leigh Woods, and when it was time to part he bent