she would be the first to hail me legal man, and
was prepared for it. She sat on horseback alone in the hazy dewy
Midsummer morning, giving clear note:

'Whoop! Harry Richmond! halloo!' To which I tossed her a fox's brush,
having a jewelled bracelet pendant. She missed it and let it lie, and
laughed.

'No, no; it's foxie himself!--anybody may have the brush. You're dressed,
are you, Harry? You were sure I should come? A thousand happy years to
you, and me to see them, if you don't mind. I 'm first to wish it, I'm
certain. I was awake at three, out at halfpast, over Durstan heath,
across Eckerthy's fields--we'll pay the old man for damage--down by the
plantation, Bran and Sailor at my heels, and here I am. Crow, cocks!
bark, dogs! up, larks! I said I'd be first. And now I 'm round to stables
to stir up Uberly. Don't be tardy, Mr. Harry, and we'll be Commodore
Arson and his crew before the world's awake.'

We rode out for a couple of hours, and had to knock at a farmhouse for
milk and bread. Possibly a sense of independence, owing to the snatching
of a meal in midflight away from home, made Janet exclaim that she would
gladly be out all day. Such freaks were exceedingly to my taste. Then I
remembered Dipwell, and sure that my father would be there, though he had
not written of it, I proposed to ride over. She pleaded for the horses
and the squire alternately. Feasting was arranged at Riversley, as well
as at Dipwell, and she said musically,

'Harry, the squire is a very old man, and you may not have many more
chances of pleasing him. To-day do, do! To-morrow, ride to your father,
if you must: of course you must if you think it right; but don't go this
day.'

'Not upset my fortune, Janet?'

'Don't hurt the kind old man's heart to-day.'

'Oh! you're the girl of his heart, I know.'

'Well, Harry, you have first place, and I want you to keep it.'

'But here's an oath I've sworn to my father.'

'He should not have exacted it, I think.'

'I promised him when I was a youngster.'

'Then be wiser now, Harry.'

'You have brilliant ideas of the sacredness of engagements.'

'I think I have common sense, that's all.'

'This is a matter of feeling.'

'It seems that you forgot it, though!'

Kiomi's tents on Durstan heath rose into view. I controlled my verbal
retort upon Janet to lead her up to the gipsy girl, for whom she had an
odd aversion, dating from childhood. Kiomi undertook to ride to Dipwell,
a distance of