think you?"

"Should you like some?" inquired A. M., as she sought Roscoria's face again.

"Dearly, my lass."

Anna Maria showed she could move; she positively darted home, to return much slower, and with a portentous gravity of demeanor, bearing in tremulous hands one glass of cider held very tight. But to whom to give it? There lies a sad struggle for her between duty and inclination. She glanced yearningly at Roscoria's dark head, propped up expectantly on elbow, then she measured Tregurtha's noble length stretched out beside his friend. Slowly, reluctantly, but overpoweringly came the truth upon her youthful mind: Tregurtha was the taller, ergo, in her infant logic, he—the elder—must the first be served. Without waiting an instant, wee Hebe gave the Cornishman his due, and fled away again. Once more she came, more careful even than before; and, with a nascent spark of coquetry in those rustic eyes, she smiled and said: "And this, sir, is for you!"

"Here's your health, my bonny lass!" cried Louis, raising the glass to his lips. "Long may those cheeks of yours retain their roses, and may you ever be as able to look a decent man in the face!" Anna Maria, not quite comprehending this ovation, turned so earnestly serious, and so riveted her intent gaze on the handsome countenance of Louis, that the unfortunate young man could stand fire no longer, and ended his refreshing drink by the most ignominious fit of choking.

"You had better go, my dear," interposed Tregurtha hastily, slipping a shilling into the child's hand; "he isn't used to so much admiration."

Anna Maria reluctantly departed, with many a backward glance at Louis, who, when the firm young feet had borne his small admirer solidly away, threw out his arms with a groan of intense relief and said:

"By Heaven, Tregurtha, there is great power in the human eye! I feel completely mesmerized."

"What a thing it is to be good-looking!" observed Tregurtha, lighting a cigar. "Now, I wonder how stands the heart of this young Adonis? Has he yet learnt that the proper study of mankind is woman?"

Roscoria laughed, tumbled down into the soft grass again, and meditatively responded:

"I shall end like Shelley by finding all modern love unsatisfactory, because of an ideal attachment to Antigone. The lady of this century talks too loud; she cannot laugh either. She is matter-of-fact; she has an eye to the main chance."

"You are fastidious, my boy. Case of Narcissus over again, I imagine."

"Don't you be an old fool, Tregurtha," said Louis, more pleased than he liked to show by the implied compliment. He rolled lazily to the verge of the river, and was just about to examine his own visage, when he suddenly caught his friend's eye of malicious criticism, and, after affecting to have seen a trout in the water, jumped up and said "Come along!"

"Hallo! my rod. I forgot. It is still adhering to an alder."

"Fetch it, then."

"I daren't."

"Still fearing the silver-footed Thetis? Why, man, she will be far enough by this time! But if that is the case, matters are easily settled; I'll go."

Roscoria went off accordingly, wondering what on earth he would not do for Tregurtha, and, when he had waded the stream, climbed the tree, disentangled the line, and substituted other flies for those which had been jerked off, the two anglers started at a brisk walk to go further up the river.

It is a pleasant country this, in which to spend a summer day. The trees are very magnificent and full of foliage; the glens are bold and varied; and the river-courses glittering through many a winsome spot. With good sport, light hearts, intense capacities for enjoyment, the two young men spent a rare afternoon, to be long remembered in their winter evenings as one of the brightest of their holidays. They were approaching toward six o'clock the boundary of the famed Doone Valley, where they owned the fair spell of the enchanter Blackmore, who, with his poetic wand, has conjured up the past for us, and haled dead men out of their coffins to live again and be famous beyond the wildest hopes of their lifetime.

Then, whilst musing by himself, Roscoria chanced to notice a churlish coolness in the air, a depth of shadow from the neighboring oak, a meaning hush and quiet stealing all about; and all he said to the deepening beauty of the summer eve was this:

"Hang it all, I must put up my rod!" Sitting with his back turned to the river that he might not be tempted, Roscoria did so slowly, to give Tregurtha as many extra seconds as possible. He then went to fetch his unwilling companion, who had to be hauled from the bank by the coat-collar; then off and away to the place appointed for Jehu to meet them, and home in contented silence to the Young Gentlemen's Academy. The supper consumed within the halls of Torres that night was truly Homeric. Witness the behavior of the cook. She was an energetic woman; but she sank down at last upon the nearest chair, and, wringing stalwart arms in desperation, cried, "May the Lord stay their stomachs, for I cannot!"

III.

THE GODDESS.

One sultry afternoon Roscoria—the vices of boyhood vexing overmuch his burdened heart—betook himself to green meadows with a volume of Plato. He had announced his intention of reading in the same until he had cooled down, a process which usually took him precisely three hours. Long before he was expected, however, he was heard by Tregurtha coming along the bridge over the moat toward his front window, and presently he sprung in by the same, with an excited look in his eyes and the manner of a man who has a fact to tell.

"Save you, Tregurtha! I am hit hard," was his greeting.

"I beg your pardon," said Tregurtha, politely, looking up from a piece of carpentering.

"Did you ever hear, Dick, of love at first sight?"

"Yes; and a very shady proceeding it always seemed to me, if, indeed, it be not a chimera. But, Roscoria, you are not feeling anything in your head, are you? Giddiness, perhaps? A feeling as if you had lost your memory? I hope it's nothing serious; but, my dear fellow, the sun was rather hot when you started."

"You great ass! I tell you it is not the head that is affected; it's the heart."

"Same thing, dear boy."

"I have seen, Tregurtha—I have seen an Olympian goddess treading the grass of a nineteenth-century field!"

"You've seen a milkmaid!"

"Richard, if I thought I could annihilate you, I would try. She was majestic, pensive, golden-haired, distracting; a daughter of the gods, I swear."

"My dear sir, I think you had better take it easy," interposed Tregurtha anxiously. "Take the armchair near the window, and open your grief. There really is no hurry."

Roscoria was at last induced to sit down, Tregurtha standing by him, with bent brows of perplexity, in his shirt-sleeves, with his hammer still in his hand. Louis began his recital by a torrent of Greek, comparing his mysterious goddess to almost every heroine of antiquity, and using so great a multitude of compound adjectives and fantastic turns of speech that his hearer faintly seized a newspaper and fanned himself therewith.

"As it is some time since I was at school, Roscoria," interpolated his friend on the first opportunity, "you will excuse me if I do not quite follow you. If you could speak English mainly, I would pardon the use of a few Grecisms."

"I am sorry," said Roscoria, "and, by Jupiter, will try to speak of her in English. Listen. I was taking my solitary ramble through a field skirting a beautiful little wood of Sir John Villiers', filled with wild hyacinths. I had my eyes fixed on my book for a long while, but when I lifted them, what think you, friend, they saw?"