th it,
because then you would like me better. Do you like me much less for
this?'

She looked sideways at him with critical meditation tenderly rendered.

'Do I seem like LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI?' she began suddenly, without
replying to his question. 'Fancy yourself saying, Mr. Smith:

"I sat her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A fairy's song,
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew;"

and that's all she did.'

'No, no,' said the young man stilly, and with a rising colour.

'"And sure in language strange she said,
I love thee true."'

'Not at all,' she rejoined quickly. 'See how I can gallop. Now,
Pansy, off!' And Elfride started; and Stephen beheld her light
figure contracting to the dimensions of a bird as she sank into the
distance--her hair flowing.

He walked on in the same direction, and for a considerable time could
see no signs of her returning. Dull as a flower without the sun he sat
down upon a stone, and not for fifteen minutes was any sound of horse
or rider to be heard. Then Elfride and Pansy appeared on the hill in a
round trot.

'Such a delightful scamper as we have had!' she said, her face flushed
and her eyes sparkling. She turned the horse's head, Stephen arose, and
they went on again.

'Well, what have you to say to me, Mr. Smith, after my long absence?'

'Do you remember a question you could not exactly answer last
night--whether I was more to you than anybody else?' said he.

'I cannot exactly answer now, either.'

'Why can't you?'

'Because I don't know if I am more to you than any one else.'

'Yes, indeed, you are!' he exclaimed in a voice of intensest
appreciation, at the same time gliding round and looking into her face.

'Eyes in eyes,' he murmured playfully; and she blushingly obeyed,
looking back into his.

'And why not lips on lips?' continued Stephen daringly.

'No, certainly not. Anybody might look; and it would be the death of me.
You may kiss my hand if you like.'

He expressed by a look that to kiss a hand through a glove, and that a
riding-glove, was not a great treat under the circumstances.

'There, then; I'll take my glove off. Isn't it a pretty white hand? Ah,
you don't want to kiss it, and you shall not now!'

'If I do not, may I never kiss again, you severe Elfride! You know I
think more of you than