omin' next. We 'm built to see just beyond our awn nose-ends and
no further. That's philosophy."

"Ban't comfortin' if 't is," said Phoebe.

"Whether or no, I'll see your faither 'fore night and have a plain
answer. I'm a straight, square man, so's the miller."

"You'll speed poorly, I'm fearin', but 't is a honest thing; and I'll
tell faither you 'm all the world to me. He doan't seem to knaw what it
is for a gal to be nineteen year old somehow."

Solemnly Will rose, almost overweighted with the consciousness of what
lay before him.

"We'll go home-along now. Doan't 'e tell him I'm coming. I'll take him
unbeknawnst. And you keep out the way till I be gone again."

"Does your mother knaw, Will?"

"Ess, she an' Chris both knaw I be gwaine to have it out this night.
Mother sez I be right, but that Miller will send me packing wi' a flea
in my ear; Chris sez I be wrong to ax yet awhile."

"You can see why that is; 'she 's got to wait herself," said Phoebe,
rather spitefully.

"Waitin' 's well enough when it caan't be helped. But in my case, as a
man of assured work and position in the plaace, I doan't hold it needful
no more."

Together the young couple marched down over the meadows, gained the side
of the river, and followed its windings to the west. Through a dip in
the woods presently peeped the ancient stannary town of Chagford, from
the summit of its own little eminence on the eastern confines of
Dartmoor. Both Will and Phoebe dwelt within the parish, but some
distance from the place itself. She lived at Monks Barton, a farm and
mill beside the stream; he shared an adjacent cottage with his mother
and sister. Only a bend of the river separated the dwellings of the
lovers--where Rushford Bridge spanned the Teign and beech and fir rose
above it.

In a great glory of clearness after rain, boy and girl moved along
together under the trees. The fisherman's path which they followed wound
where wet granite shone and ivy glimmered beneath the forest; and the
leaves still dripped briskly, making a patter of sound through the
underwood, and marking a thousand circles and splashes in the smooth
water beneath the banks of the stream. Against a purple-grey background
of past rain the green of high summer shone bright and fresh, and each
moss-clad rock and fern-fringed branch of the forest oaks sent forth its
own incense of slender steam where the sunlight sparkled and sucked up
the moisture. Scarce half a mile from Ph