the lines prettily, and put away her rustic accent, all but
the music:

'"Down in the West dwells my lady Clare:
Blow, O balmy wind, from the West!
Bathe me in odours of her hair,
Bring me her thoughts ere she fell to rest!

'"Beam, O moon, through her casement bars;
Bathe in thy glory her glorious hair:
Keep guard over her, sentinel stars;
Watch her and keep her, all things fair!"'

'You didn't make that up out of your own head, did ee, Paul?

'Yes,' said Paul.

Here was his divinity reciting the lines with which she herself had
inspired him.

'Now, couldn't ee make a piece of poetry about me?' she asked.

Paul's heart gave one great thump at his breast and stopped.

'That was about you,' he said.

'Why, you silly boy,' she said, 'you've got the name wrong. But oh,
Paul, ain't ee beginning very young? Askin' for maids' thoughts afore
they go to sleep! Mine, too! You'll be a regular gallows young reprobate
afore you're much older. That I'm sure of.'

There was a trembling wish deep down in his heart that she had left
this unsaid, but how could he be so disloyal as to let it float to the
surface? He drowned it deep, but it was there. She had misunderstood.
She read him coarsely, not as the May of his dreams had read him.

'Now, you write something about me, will ee, Paul?--something in my
own name. Will ee?' Paul made no answer for the moment, for the request
fairly carried him off his balance. 'Will ee, now?' she asked, bringing
her face in front of his.

'Yes, yes, yes,' he half sighed, half panted.

'Here's a stile,' she said, springing forward with a happy gurgle of a
laugh. The laugh to Paul's ear was as musical as the sad chuckle of
the nightingale, and as far from sorrow as its one rival is from mirth.
There was _camaraderie_ in it, sympathy, a touch even of something
confidential. 'Now, well sit down here together, and you shall make it
up.'

She perched on the stile as light as a perching bird, and drew her lithe
figure on one side to make room for Paul. The stile was narrow, and
there was barely room for two. Paul hesitated shyly, but she patted the
seat in a pretty assumption of impatience, and he obeyed.

'Paul,' she said, sliding an arm behind him, and taking hold of the
side-post. 'What was it ee wanted to tell this morning?'

'This morning?' said Paul stupidly. It is one thing to resolve to be
courageous in battle. It may be another thing when