cousin mine! Your wit will do me credit, after a
little sharpening. And there is none to do that better than your aunt,
my mother. Although she knows not of my coming, she is longing to
receive you. Come, and in a few months' time you shall set the mode at
Court, instead of pining here, and weaving coronals of daisies."

'I turned aside, and thought a little. Although he seemed so light of
mind, and gay in dress and manner, I could not doubt his honesty; and
saw, beneath his jaunty air, true mettle and ripe bravery. Scarce had I
thought of his project twice, until he spoke of my aunt, his mother, but
then the form of my dearest friend, my sweet Aunt Sabina, seemed to come
and bid me listen, for this was what she prayed for. Moreover I felt
(though not as now) that Doone Glen was no place for me or any proud
young maiden. But while I thought, the yellow lightning spread behind a
bulk of clouds, three times ere the flash was done, far off and void of
thunder; and from the pile of cloud before it, cut as from black paper,
and lit to depths of blackness by the blaze behind it, a form as of an
aged man, sitting in a chair loose-mantled, seemed to lift a hand and
warn.

'This minded me of my grandfather, and all the care I owed him.
Moreover, now the storm was rising and I began to grow afraid; for of
all things awful to me thunder is the dreadfulest. It doth so growl,
like a lion coming, and then so roll, and roar, and rumble, out of a
thickening darkness, then crack like the last trump overhead through
cloven air and terror, that all my heart lies low and quivers, like a
weed in water. I listened now for the distant rolling of the great black
storm, and heard it, and was hurried by it. But the youth before me
waved his rolled tobacco at it, and drawled in his daintiest tone and
manner,--

'"The sky is having a smoke, I see, and dropping sparks, and grumbling.
I should have thought these Exmoor hills too small to gather thunder."

'"I cannot go, I will not go with you, Lord Alan Brandir," I answered,
being vexed a little by those words of his. "You are not grave enough
for me, you are not old enough for me. My Aunt Sabina would not
have wished it; nor would I leave my grandfather, without his full
permission. I thank you much for coming, sir; but be gone at once by the
way you came; and pray how did you come, sir?"

'"Fair cousin, you will grieve for this; you will mourn, when you cannot
mend it. I would my mother had b