it listening to Mary's music,--she came to me; fairylike, white-robed,
all tenderness, all softness and palpitating womanliness.

"George,--my George," she whispered, "I could not wait till morning
either.--And why should we wait, when my father's and your father's
pledge, the vow they made for you and for me,--although we have not
known it till now,--need not be broken after all."

I caught her up and kissed her lips, her eyes, her hair,--again and
again,--until she gasped, thinking I should never cease.

With our arms around each other, we waited on the cliffs for the
sunrise. We watched it come up in all its rosy loveliness, paling the
dying moon and setting the waters of the Bay ablaze.

"And we must leave all this, my Lady Rosemary?" I said, with a sigh of
regret.

"For a time,--yes! But not altogether, George; not always; for the
little bungalow behind us is mine now,--ours; a gift last Christmas to
me from my father's dear American friend, my friend, Colonel Sol Dorry,
with whom, in Wyoming, I spent the happiest of all my girlhood days."

"Mary,--Rosemary," I exclaimed, as an unsatisfied little thought kept
recurring to me, refusing to be set aside even in the midst of our
great happiness,--"there is a little maid 'in the North Countree' in
whom I am deeply interested. The last I heard of her, she had been
jilted by her lover. Didn't he ever come back to her?"

Rosemary laughed.

"It is getting near to breakfast-time; so, if George, Earl of
Brammerton and Hazelmere, Storekeeper at Golden Crescent, runs over
home and listens very attentively while he is burning his porridge and
_boiling_ his tea,--he may hear of what happened to that sweet, little
maid."

And, sure enough, as I stood, with my sleeves rolled up, stirring
oatmeal and water that threatened every minute to stick to the bottom
of the pot; there came through my open window the sounds of the
bewitching voice of Rosemary,--my own, my charming Lady Rosemary:--

A maid there is in the North Countree;
A coy little, glad little maid is she.
Her cheeks are aglow with a rosy hue,
For her knight proved true, as good knights should be.
And, day by day, as their vows renew,
Her spinning wheel purrs and the threads weave through;
It purrs. It purrs. It purrs and the threads weave through.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's My Brave and Gallant Gentleman, by Robert Watson

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUT