----?"

He pauses, smiling wistfully.

"Ah, finish--finish! I know 'tis something pretty by the manner in
which you smile," she says, laughing.

"Who knows, I would say, but in following her, fairest
Belle-bouche--may I call you Belle-bouche?"

"Oh yes, if you please--if you think it suits me."

And she pours the full light of her eyes and smiles upon him, until he
looks down, blinded.

"Pity, pity," he murmurs, "pity, dearest Miss Belle-bouche----"

She pretends not to hear, but, turning away with a blush at that word
"dearest," says, with an attempt at a laugh:

"You have not told me why you would wish your Chloe to draw you after
her with her crook."

"Because we should pass through the groves----"

"Well."

"And I should wrap her in my cloak, to protect her from the boughs and
thorns."

"Would you?"

"Ah, yes! And then we should cross the beautiful meadows and the
flowery knolls----"

"Very well, sir."

"And I should gather flowers for her, and kneeling to present them,
would approach near enough to kiss her hand----"

"Oh goodness!"

"And finally, fairest Belle-bouche, we should cross the bright streams
on the pretty sylvan bridges----"

"Yes, sir."

"And most probably she would grow giddy; and I should take her in my
arms, and holding her on my faithful bosom----"

Jacques opens his arms as though he would really clasp the fair
shepherdess, who, half risen, with her golden curls mingled with the
flowers, her cheeks the color of her red fluttering ribbons, seeks to
escape the declaration which her lover is about to make.

"Oh, no! no!" she says.

He draws back despairingly, and at the same moment hears a merry voice
come singing down the blossom-fretted walk, upon which millions of the
snowy leaves have fallen.

"One more chance gone!" the melancholy Jacques murmurs; and turning,
he bows to the new comer--the fair Philippa.

CHAPTER III.

AN HEIRESS WHO WISHES TO BECOME A MAN.

Philippa is a lady of nineteen or twenty, with the air of a duchess
and the walk of an antelope. Her brilliant eyes, as black as night,
and as clear as a sunny stream, are full of life, vivacity and
mischief; she seems to be laughing at life, and love, and gallantry,
and all the complimentary nothings of society, from the height of her
superior intellect, and with undazzled eyes. She is clad even more
richly than Belle-bouche, for Philippa is an heiress--the mistress of
untold farms--or plantatio