ead. Paul's face was like a peony for colour, but he pouted his lips
also, and bent to meet hers. When they had almost met, she drew her
head back with a demure shake and a look of doubt The kitchen rang
with laughter at Paul's hangdog discomfiture. The innocent, wicked,
tantalizing eye mocked him, and he was awhirl with shame; but he found
in the midst of it a desperate courage, and, throwing one arm around her
neck, he kissed her full on the lips with a loud rustic smack.

'Well,' she said, with a face of horrified rebuke, all but the eyes,
which fairly danced with mirth and mischief, 'if that's Castle Barfield
manners, I'd better go home again.'

'Quite right, Paul,' said Paul's uncle. 'Stand none o' their nonsense,
lad.'

'Oh, but, uncle,' said she, 'you _would_ think him milder to look at
him--now, wouldn't ee?'

Paul knew the speech of the local gentry, he knew his father's Ayrshire
accent, and his own yokel drawl; but this new cousin spoke an English
altogether strange to his ears, and it sounded fairylike. He stared in
foolish worship.

'You'd better know who you be,' said Paul's uncle, 'and shake hands.
This is your grand-uncle's grand-niece, Paul. May Gold her name is. May,
my darlin', this is Paul Armstrong.'

She held out her hand, and Paul took it shyly in his own. He had very
rarely touched a hand which was not roughened more or less by labour.
The warm, soft pressure tightened on his own hard palm for an instant
only, but he tingled from head to foot as if he had touched something
electric.

'Oh!'-she said, 'this is Uncle Armstrong's little boy? She was by two
years his senior, and for a girl she was tall; but he was more than on a
level with her so far as mere height went, and the phrase cut him at the
heart. She took the strawberry-pottle from her head with both hands, as
if it had been a crown, and laid it on the kitchen dresser. 'I've heard
my father talk of his father five hundred times. My father thinks no
end of Uncle Armstrong. He says that for a man of learning he never met
anybody one half so sensible.'

Paul fell head over heels in love with the pretty cousin from
Devonshire. That is to say, he fell in love with his own dreams about
her, and they were sweet enough for any lad to fall in love with. She
sang and she played, she brimmed over with accomplishment, which was
all rustic enough, no doubt, but angel-fine to Paul, and exotic, and
not like anything within his knowledge. She play