h from a thicket and finds her young grazing in the glade,
she lifted her head and looked with brightest eyes away to the high road
whence the call had come. Then, though they were yet far asunder, his
eyes met hers, and hers met his, and they uplifted their arms, as though
some invisible power had moved them both, and flew to meet each other.
There was no doubt nor pause; and I plainly perceived that they were
borne along as flowers are in a raging torrent; albeit she, or ever she
reached him; was overcome by maiden shamefacedness, and her arms fell
and her head was bent. But the little bird had ventured too far into
the springe, and the fowler was not the man to let it escape; before Ann
could foresee such a deed he had both his arms round her, and she did
not hinder him, nay, for she could not. So she clung to him and let
him lift up her head and kiss her eyes and then her mouth, and that
not once, no, but many a time and again, and so long that I, a
sixteen-year-old maid, was in truth affrighted.

There stood I; my knees quaked, and I weened that this which was doing
was a thing that beseemed not a pious maid, and that must ill-please the
heart of a virtuous daughter's mother; yea, it was a grief to me that
it should have been done, and that I knew that of my Ann which she would
fain hide from the light. Nevertheless I could not but find a joy in
it, and meseemed it was a cruel act to fetch her away so soon from such
sweet bliss.

When presently their lips were free, and at last he spoke a few words to
her, methought it was now time for me to greet my brother. I called up
all my strength and while I walked toward them my spirit's sense came
back to me, for indeed it had altogether left me, and a voice within
asked: "What shall come of this?"

He put forth his arm to hold her to him again, and forasmuch as I was
abashed to think of coming in to their secret, before I stepped forth,
from the thicket, I hailed Herdegen by name. And soon I was in his arms;
but although that he kissed me lovingly, meseemed that something strange
was on his lips which pleased me not, and I yet remember that I put my
kerchief to my mouth to wipe that from it.

And then we walked homeward. Herdegen led his horse by the bridle, and
Ann went between him and me and gazed up into his face with shining
eyes, for in these two years he had grown in stature and in manhood. She
listened wide-eared to all his tidings, but once, when his horse grew