and pensively over his horse's flanks to the ground.

II

Mistress Thankful remained at the wall until her lover had disappeared.
Then she turned, a mere lissom shadow in that uncertain light, and
glided under the eaves of the shed, and thence from tree to tree of the
orchard, lingering a moment under each as a trout lingers in the shadow
of the bank in passing a shallow, and so reached the farmhouse and the
kitchen door, where she entered. Thence by a back staircase she slipped
to her own bower, from whose window half an hour before she had taken
the signalling light. This she lit again and placed upon a chest of
drawers; and, taking off her hood and a shapeless sleeveless mantle she
had worn, went to the mirror, and proceeded to re-adjust a high horn
comb that had been somewhat displaced by the captain's arm, and
otherwise after the fashion of her sex to remove all traces of a
previous lover. It may be here observed that a man is very apt to come
from the smallest encounter with his dulcinea distrait, bored, or
shame-faced; to forget that his cravat is awry, or that a long blond
hair is adhering to his button. But as to Mademoiselle--well, looking
at Miss Pussy's sleek paws and spotless face, would you ever know that
she had been at the cream-jug?

Thankful was, I think, satisfied with her appearance. Small doubt but
she had reason for it. And yet her gown was a mere slip of flowered
chintz, gathered at the neck, and falling at an angle of fifteen
degrees to within an inch of a short petticoat of gray flannel. But so
surely is the complete mould of symmetry indicated in the poise or line
of any single member, that looking at the erect carriage of her
graceful brown head, or below to the curves that were lost in her
shapely ankles, or the little feet that hid themselves in the
broad-buckled shoes, you knew that the rest was as genuine and
beautiful.

Mistress Thankful, after a pause, opened the door, and listened. Then
she softly slipped down the back staircase to the front hall. It was
dark; but the door of the "company-room," or parlor, was faintly
indicated by the light that streamed beneath it. She stood still for a
moment hesitatingly, when suddenly a hand grasped her own, and half
led, half dragged her, into the sitting-room opposite. It was dark.
There was a momentary fumbling for the tinder-box and flint, a muttered
oath over one or two impeding articles of furniture, and Thankful
laughed. And