out a minute; when Henry, calling up his courage,
pulled the gloves out of his pocket with which Simon had supplied him,
and asked her to permit one who had been so highly graced that morning
to pay the usual penalty for being asleep at the moment when he would
have given the slumbers of a whole twelvemonth to be awake for a single
minute.

"Nay, but," said Catharine, "the fulfilment of my homage to St.
Valentine infers no such penalty as you desire to pay, and I cannot
therefore think of accepting them."

"These gloves," said Henry, advancing his seat insidiously towards
Catharine as he spoke, "were wrought by the hands that are dearest to
you; and see--they are shaped for your own."

He extended them as he spoke, and taking her arm in his robust hand,
spread the gloves beside it to show how well they fitted.

"Look at that taper arm," he said, "look at these small fingers; think
who sewed these seams of silk and gold, and think whether the glove and
the arm which alone the glove can fit ought to remain separate, because
the poor glove has had the misfortune to be for a passing minute in the
keeping of a hand so swart and rough as mine."

"They are welcome as coming from my father," said Catharine; "and surely
not less so as coming from my friend (and there was an emphasis on the
word), as well as my Valentine and preserver."

"Let me aid to do them on," said the smith, bringing himself yet closer
to her side; "they may seem a little over tight at first, and you may
require some assistance."

"You are skilful in such service, good Henry Gow," said the maiden,
smiling, but at the same time drawing farther from her lover.

"In good faith, no," said Henry, shaking his head: "my experience has
been in donning steel gauntlets on mailed knights, more than in fitting
embroidered gloves upon maidens."

"I will trouble you then no further, and Dorothy shall aid me, though
there needs no assistance; my father's eye and fingers are faithful to
his craft: what work he puts through his hands is always true to the
measure."

"Let me be convinced of it," said the smith--"let me see that these
slender gloves actually match the hands they were made for."

"Some other time, good Henry," answered the maiden, "I will wear the
gloves in honour of St. Valentine, and the mate he has sent me for
the season. I would to Heaven I could pleasure my father as well in
weightier matters; at present the perfume of the leather harms the