digiously glad to see you, and that of course you will stay awhile."

"But you have your work to do."

"Dear me, never you mind my work. I've earned my dinner this morning, if
you have no objection; and I propose to share it with you. So we will
go back to the house." He turned her horse's head about, started up his
oxen with his voice, and walked along beside her on the grassy roadside,
with one hand in the horse's mane, and the other swinging his whip.

Before they reached the yard-gate, Gertrude had revolved his speech.
"Enough about himself," she said, silently echoing his words. "Yes,
Heaven be praised, it _is_ about himself. I am but a means in this
matter,--he himself, his own character, his own happiness, is the end."
Under this conviction it seemed to her that her part was appreciably
simplified. Richard was learning wisdom and self-control, and to
exercise his reason. Such was the suit that he was destined to gain. Her
duty was as far as possible to remain passive, and not to interfere with
the working of the gods who had selected her as the instrument of their
prodigy. As they reached the gate, Richard made a trumpet of his hands,
and sent a ringing summons into the fields; whereupon a farm-boy
approached, and, with an undisguised stare of amazement at Gertrude,
took charge of his master's team. Gertrude rode up to the door-step,
where her host assisted her to dismount, and bade her go in and make
herself at home, while he busied himself with the bestowal of her horse.
She found that, in her absence, the old woman who administered her
friend's household had reappeared, and had laid out the preparations for
his mid-day meal. By the time he returned, with his face and head
shining from a fresh ablution, and his shirt-sleeves decently concealed
by a coat, Gertrude had apparently won the complete confidence of the
good wife.

Gertrude doffed her hat, and tucked up her riding-skirt, and sat down to
a _tete-a-tete_ over Richard's crumpled table-cloth. The young man
played the host very soberly and naturally; and Gertrude hardly knew
whether to augur from his perfect self-possession that her star was
already on the wane, or that it had waxed into a steadfast and eternal
sun. The solution of her doubts was not far to seek; Richard was
absolutely at his ease in her presence. He had told her indeed that she
intoxicated him; and truly, in those moments when she was compelled to
oppose her dewy eloquence to his fervid