rhaps, but not the less sincere--a flower
presented as she passed under the porch of the village church, or a
fairing brought from Bristol, left with no words on the stone seat under
the porch.

But none had dared to make a formal declaration of love, except Jack
Henderson, perhaps, who, on his not frequent visits to his old home at
the Mendips, found Bryda more and more irresistible, and gave her reason
to know, as at this time, that the sight of her was indispensable to his
happiness. Poor Jack, he was to find out that the very temptation he put
in Bryda's way--to take flight to the busy, toiling city, now lying at
the distance of some miles below them, wrapt in the gathering blue haze
of the May evening--was to widen and not lessen the distance between
them.

'Well,' he said, drawing his huge ungainly form from the soft cushion of
moss, where the daisies and golden cistus flowers had shut their eyes
for the night, 'well, take my word for it, you'll find a lot of things
you care for in Bristol, and I tell you, if I were you, I should write
to Madam Lambert at once. You can send it by the carrier, tied up in
brown paper. He baits his horse in Corn Street, close to Lambert's
office, and he'll take it direct to Dowry Square. You'll get heaps of
things you want. Books--why, bless you, Bristol is a mighty learned
place. The folks there do nothing else than write histories, and read
till they are blind. You'll get a lot of things there, and so you'll say
when you are once there.'

'Bryda, Bryda,' it was Betty's voice calling in the orchard, 'Bryda,
pray come; Aunt Dorothy is as cross as two sticks.'

'Is that anything new?' Bryda said, with a little laugh, as she sprang
to her feet, waved her hand to Jack Henderson, and disappeared under the
blossoming apple trees. He longed to follow her, but as she did not ask
him to do so, he turned towards his home two miles away.

That night, when Betty was quietly sleeping in the white-curtained
tent-bed which the sisters shared, Bryda went to the lattice and opened
it gently, and looked out into the calm of the summer night. The
old-fashioned garden below sent up from its bushes of lavender and
rosemary, and sweet-scented thyme and wallflower, a dewy fragrance. A
honeysuckle just coming into full flower clasped the mullion of the old
stone framework by the lattice with clinging tendrils. Above, the stars
looked down, giving the sense of the infinite and eternal, which will
stri