are ye!" Patsy checked her outburst
with a warning hand: "No--don't ye be telling me. Ye couldn't turn
out anything better nor a tinker--and I'd rather keep ye as I found
ye. So if ye have a secret--mind it well; and don't ye be letting it
loose to scare the two of us into over-wise, conventional folk. We'll
play Willie Shakespeare comedy to the end of the road--please God!"

"Amen!" agreed the tinker, devoutly, as he threw her portion of fried
eggs neatly out of the pan into her plate.

It was not until she was served that he looked after his own wants;
then they ate in silence, both too hungry and too full of their own
thoughts to loosen their tongues.

Once the tinker broke the silence. "Your wish--what was it?" he
asked.

"That's telling," said Patsy. "But if ye'll confess to where ye came
by this heavenly meal, I might confess to the wish."

He rubbed his chin solemnly for an instant; then he beamed. "I'll
tell ye. I picked it off o' the fern-tops and brambles as I came
along."

"Of course ye did," agreed Patsy, with fine sarcasm, "and for my
wish--I was after thinking I'd marry the king's son."

They looked at each other with the teasing, saucy stare of two
children; then they laughed as care-free and as merrily.

"Maybe you'll get your wish," he suggested, soberly.

"Maybe I will," agreed Patsy, with mock solemnity.

A look of shrewdness sprang into the tinker's face. "But you said you
hated gold. You couldn't marry a king's son 'thout havin' gold--lots
of it."

"Aye--but I could! Couldn't I be making him throw it away before ever
I'd marry him?" And Patsy clapped her hands triumphantly.

"An' you'd marry him--poor?" The tinker's eyes kindled suddenly, as
he asked it--for all the world as if her answer might have a meaning
for him.

Patsy never noticed. She was looking past him--into the
indistinguishable wood-tangle beyond. "Sure, we wouldn't be poor.
We'd be blessed with nothing--that's all!"

For those golden moments of romancing Patsy's quest was forgotten;
they might have reached Arden and despatched her errand, for all the
worriment their loitering caused her. As for the tinker, if he had
either a mission or a destination he gave no sign for her to reckon
by.

They dallied over the breakfast; they dallied over the aftermath of
picking up and putting away and stamping out the charred twigs and
embers; and then they dallied over the memory of it all. Patsy spun a
hundred threads of fancy