ed rather
abruptly.

"Oh yes," said Mabyn, in a low voice: "that is when you are in love
with some one. And there is only one face in all the world that I look
to for all these things, there is only one person I know who tells you
openly and simply in her face all that affects her, and that is our
Wenna. I suppose you have noticed that, Mr. Trelyon?"

But he did not make any answer.

CHAPTER XXI.

CONFESSION.

The lad lay dreaming in the warm meadows by the side of a small and
rapid brook, the clear waters of which plashed and bubbled in the
sunlight as they hurried past the brown stones. His fishing-rod lay
beside him, hidden in the long grass and the daisies. The sun was hot
in the valley--shining on a wall of gray rock behind him, and throwing
purple shadows over the clefts; shining on the dark bushes beside
the stream and on the lush green of the meadows; shining on the trees
beyond, in the shadow of which some dark red cattle were standing.
Then away on the other side of the valley rose gently-sloping woods,
gray and green in the haze of the heat, and over these again was the
pale blue sky with scarcely a cloud in it. It was a hot day to be
found in spring-time, but the waters of the brook seemed cool and
pleasant as they gurgled by, and occasionally a breath of wind blew
over from the woods. For the rest, he lay so still on this fine,
indolent, dreamy morning that the birds around seemed to take no note
of his presence, and one of the large woodpeckers, with his scarlet
head and green body brilliant in the sun, flew close by him and
disappeared into the bushes opposite like a sudden gleam of color shot
by a diamond.

"Next month," he was thinking to himself as he lay with his hands
behind his head, not caring to shade his handsome and well-tanned face
from the warm sun--"next month I shall be twenty-one, and most folks
will consider me a man. Anyhow, I don't know the man whom I wouldn't
fight or run or ride or shoot against for any wager he liked. But of
all the people who know anything about me, just that one whose opinion
I care for will not consider me a man at all, but only a boy. And that
without saying anything. You can tell, somehow, by a mere look, what
her feelings are; and you know that what she thinks is true. Of course
it's true--I am only a boy. What's the good of me to anybody? I could
look after a farm--that is, I could look after other people doing
their work--but I couldn't do any