turally equipped for such amorous quests. I
meant to designate your brother Laurence. 'Tis pity he is to be a
clerk. Though one day doubtless he will make a very proper and
consolatory father confessor--"

Sholto walked on in silence, his eyes fixed before him, and in such
high dudgeon that he pretended to be unconscious of what the girl had
been saying. Then the little Margaret began to prattle in her pretty
way, and the youth answered "yes" and "no" sulkily and at random, his
thoughts being alternately on the doing of some great deed to make his
mistress repent her cruelty, and on a leap into the castle pool, in
whose unsunned deeps he might find oblivion from all the flouts of
hard-hearted beauty.

Maud kept her eyes upon him, a smile of satisfaction on her lips so
long as he was not looking at her. She liked to play her fish as
satisfactorily as she could before grassing it at her feet.

"Besides, it will do him good," she said to herself. "He hath lately
won the gold badge of archery, and, like all men, is apt to think
overmuch of himself at such times. Moreover, I can always make it up
to him after--if I like, that is."

But as often as Sholto dropped a little behind, keeping pace with Maid
Margaret's slower palfrey so that Maud was sure he looked at her, the
pretty coquette cast down her eyes in affected humility and sorrow.
Whereupon immediately Sholto felt his resentment begin to melt like
snow off a dike top when the sun of April is shining.

But neither of them uttered another word till they reached the
drawbridge which crossed the nether moat and conducted to the noble
gateway of Thrieve. Then, at the foot of the stairway to the hall,
Sholto, having swung the little maid from her pony, after a moment of
sullen hesitation went across to assist Mistress Maud Lindesay out of
her saddle.

As he lifted the girl down his heart thundered tumultuously in his
breast, for he had never so touched her before. Her lashes rested
modestly on her cheek--long, black, and upcurled a little at the ends.
As her foot touched the ground, she raised them a moment, and looked
at him with one swift flash of violet eyes made darker by the
seclusion from which she had released them. Then in another moment she
had dropped them again, detaching them from his with a mighty
affectation of confusion.

"Please, Sholto, I am sorry. I did not mean it." She spoke like a
child that is sorry for a fault and is fearful of being chidden.