closed her visits; but Young Gerard was as patient as the earth,
and did not begin to look for her till April. As surely as it brought
leaves to the trees and flowers to the grass, it would, he knew, bring
his little mistress's question, half shy, half smiling, "Is your
cherry-tree in blossom, shepherd?" And later her request, smiling and
shy, for milk.

They seldom exchanged more than a few words at any time. Sometimes they
did not speak at all. For he, who was her father's servant, never spoke
first; and she, growing in years and loveliness, grew also in timidity,
so that it seemed to cost her more and more to address her greeting or
her question even to her father's servant. The sweet quick reddening of
her cheek was one of Young Gerard's chief remembrances of her.

But after a while, when they met by those sly chances which she could
control and he could not; and when she did not speak, but glanced and
hesitated and passed on; or glanced and passed without hesitation; or
passed without a glance; he came to know that she would not mind if he
arose and walked with her, if he could control the pretext, which she
could not. And he did so quietly, having always something to show her.

He showed her his most secret nests and his greatest treasures of
flowers, his because he loved them so much. He would have been jealous
of showing these things to any one but her. In a great water-meadow in
the valley, he had once shown her kingcups making sheets of gold,
enameled with every green grass ever seen in spring--thousands of
kingcups and a myriad of milkmaids in between, dancing attendance in
all their faint shades of silver-white and rosy-mauve. When a breeze
blew, this world of milkmaids swayed and curtsied above the kings'
daughters in their glory. Then Gerard and Thea looked at each other
smiling, because the same delight was in each, and soon she looked away
again at the gentle maids and the royal ladies, but he looked still at
her, who was both to him.

In silence he showed her what he loved.

But you must not suppose that she came frequently to those hills. She
was to be seen no more often than you will see a kingfisher when you
watch for it under a willow. Yet because in the season of kingfishers
you know you may see one flash at any instant, so to Young Gerard each
day of spring and summer was an expectancy; and this it was that kept
his lift alight. This and his young troop of friends in a land of fruit
in bloss