s prized above
All the maidens in hall and bower,
Many bartered their lives for that ladye's love,
And their souls for that ladye's dower.

God grant that the wish which I dare not pray
Be not that which I lust to win,
And that ever I look with my first dismay
On the face of my darling sin!

As he ceased, Kenelm's eye fell on Tom's face upturned to his own, with
open lips, an intent stare, and paled cheeks, and a look of that higher
sort of terror which belongs to awe. The man, then recovering himself,
tried to speak, and attempted a sickly smile, but neither would do.
He rose abruptly and walked away, crept under the shadow of a dark
beech-tree, and stood there leaning against the trunk.

"What say you to the ballad?" asked Kenelm of the singer.

"It is not without power," answered he.

"Ay, of a certain kind."

The minstrel looked hard at Kenelm, and dropped his eyes, with a
heightened glow on his cheek.

"The Scotch are a thoughtful race. The Scot who wrote this thing may
have thought of a day when he saw beauty in the face of a darling sin;
but, if so, it is evident that his sight recovered from that glamoury.
Shall we walk on? Come, Tom."

The minstrel left them at the entrance of the town, saying, "I regret
that I cannot see more of either of you, as I quit Luscombe at daybreak.
Here, by the by, I forgot to give it before, is the address you wanted."

KENELM.--"Of the little child. I am glad you remembered her."

The minstrel again looked hard at Kenelm, this time without dropping his
eyes. Kenelm's expression of face was so simply quiet that it might be
almost called vacant.

Kenelm and Tom continued to walk on towards the veterinary surgeon's
house, for some minutes silently. Then Tom said in a whisper, "Did you
not mean those rhymes to hit me here--_here_?" and he struck his breast.

"The rhymes were written long before I saw you, Tom; but it is well if
their meaning strike us all. Of you, my friend, I have no fear now. Are
you not already a changed man?"

"I feel as if I were going through a change," answered Tom, in slow,
dreary accents. "In hearing you and that gentleman talk so much of
things that I never thought of, I felt something in me,--you will laugh
when I tell you,--something like a bird."

"Like a bird,--good!--a bird has wings."

"Just so."

"And you felt wings that you were unconscious of before, fluttering and
beating themselves as against the wires of a