forgot it, upon my life."

Eustacia's face flagged. There was to be a party at the Yeobrights';
she, naturally, had nothing to do with it. She was a stranger to
all such local gatherings, and had always held them as scarcely
appertaining to her sphere. But had she been going, what an
opportunity would have been afforded her of seeing the man whose
influence was penetrating her like summer sun! To increase that
influence was coveted excitement; to cast it off might be to regain
serenity; to leave it as it stood was tantalizing.

The lads and men prepared to leave the premises, and Eustacia returned
to her fireside. She was immersed in thought, but not for long. In a
few minutes the lad Charley, who had come to ask permission to use the
place, returned with the key to the kitchen. Eustacia heard him, and
opening the door into the passage said, "Charley, come here."

The lad was surprised. He entered the front room not without
blushing; for he, like many, had felt the power of this girl's face
and form.

She pointed to a seat by the fire, and entered the other side of the
chimney-corner herself. It could be seen in her face that whatever
motive she might have had in asking the youth indoors would soon
appear.

"Which part do you play, Charley--the Turkish Knight, do you not?"
inquired the beauty, looking across the smoke of the fire to him on
the other side.

"Yes, miss, the Turkish Knight," he replied diffidently.

"Is yours a long part?"

"Nine speeches, about."

"Can you repeat them to me? If so I should like to hear them."

The lad smiled into the glowing turf and began--

"Here come I, a Turkish Knight,
Who learnt in Turkish land to fight,"

continuing the discourse throughout the scenes to the concluding
catastrophe of his fall by the hand of Saint George.

Eustacia had occasionally heard the part recited before. When the lad
ended she began, precisely in the same words, and ranted on without
hitch or divergence till she too reached the end. It was the same
thing, yet how different. Like in form, it had the added softness
and finish of a Raffaelle after Perugino, which, while faithfully
reproducing the original subject, entirely distances the original art.

Charley's eyes rounded with surprise. "Well, you be a clever lady!"
he said, in admiration. "I've been three weeks learning mine."

"I have heard it before," she quietly observed. "Now, would you do
anything to please me, Charley?"