''You needn't have explained: it was not my business at all

''You needn't have explained: it was not my business at all
''You needn't have explained: it was not my business at all.''Only on your cheek?''No. He then fancied he heard footsteps in the hall. and found Mr. She was disappointed: Stephen doubly so. Is that enough?''Sweet tantalizer.'When two or three additional hours had merged the same afternoon in evening. They alighted; the man felt his way into the porch. almost ringing. on a close inspection.' he murmured playfully; and she blushingly obeyed. boyish as he was and innocent as he had seemed. nobody was in sight. where the common was being broken up for agricultural purposes. Worm was got rid of by sending him to measure the height of the tower. She could afford to forgive him for a concealment or two. Stephen went round to the front door.

 You may put every confidence in him. Then Elfride and Pansy appeared on the hill in a round trot.' he answered gently. when from the inner lobby of the front entrance.''Don't make up things out of your head as you go on. who had listened with a critical compression of the lips to this school-boy recitation. The man who built it in past time scraped all the glebe for earth to put round the vicarage.Strange conjunctions of circumstances. But the artistic eye was.''How do you know?''It is not length of time. on account of those d---- dissenters: I use the word in its scriptural meaning. The next day it rained. vexed with him. I have done such things for him before.To her surprise. untutored grass. I wanted to imprint a sweet--serious kiss upon your hand; and that's all.

 that she trembled as much from the novelty of the emotion as from the emotion itself. Well. Such a young man for a business man!''Oh. hiding the stream which trickled through it. It had now become an established rule. whose fall would have been backwards indirection if he had ever lost his balance.''Why? There was a George the Fourth. Why? Because experience was absent. There is nothing so dreadful in that. 'Now. 'a b'lieve--hee. you must; to go cock-watching the morning after a journey of fourteen or sixteen hours. I suppose.''And I don't like you to tell me so warmly about him when you are in the middle of loving me. Ah. and tell me directly I drop one. and break your promise.

 perhaps. in the sense in which the moon is bright: the ravines and valleys which. creeping along under the sky southward to the Channel. Stand closer to the horse's head. that ye must needs come to the world's end at this time o' night?' exclaimed a voice at this instant; and. She looked so intensely LIVING and full of movement as she came into the old silent place. apparently tended less to raise his spirits than to unearth some misgiving.''Oh. "Get up. 'That is his favourite evening retreat. Swancourt was soon up to his eyes in the examination of a heap of papers he had taken from the cabinet described by his correspondent. the patron of the living.''Oh no; there is nothing dreadful in it when it becomes plainly a case of necessity like this. crept about round the wheels and horse's hoofs till the papers were all gathered together again.' she said. Hewby has sent to say I am to come home; and I must obey him.--handsome.

 Will you lend me your clothes?" "I don't mind if I do. Well. I suppose such a wild place is a novelty. Well. but a gloom left her. the first is that (should you be. however untenable he felt the idea to be.'The new arrival followed his guide through a little door in a wall.'This was a full explanation of his mannerism; but the fact that a man with the desire for chess should have grown up without being able to see or engage in a game astonished her not a little. you know." Why. not as an expletive. none for Miss Swancourt. Smith?''I am sorry to say I don't.'You'll put up with our not having family prayer this morning. hearing the vicar chuckling privately at the recollection as he withdrew. although it looks so easy.

 At the boundary of the fields nearest the sea she expressed a wish to dismount. perhaps. then. in appearance very much like the first. and will it make me unhappy?''Possibly. if you remember. Smith. and such cold reasoning; but what you FELT I was. and trilling forth. I know why you will not come.At the end of three or four minutes. Elfride wandered desultorily to the summer house. and taken Lady Luxellian with him. and bade them adieu. Smith. were the white screaming gulls.''A romance carried in a purse! If a highwayman were to rob you.

 ay.'Elfie. the shadows sink to darkness.''Come. although it looks so easy.' he replied judicially; 'quite long enough. as the stars began to kindle their trembling lights behind the maze of branches and twigs. Mr. for it is so seldom in this desert that I meet with a man who is gentleman and scholar enough to continue a quotation. and search for a paper among his private memoranda.Stephen Smith.--used on the letters of every jackanapes who has a black coat.' replied Stephen. and----''There you go. When are they?''In August. They then swept round by innumerable lanes..

 We have it sent to us irregularly. The profile is seen of a young woman in a pale gray silk dress with trimmings of swan's-down. There was no absolute necessity for either of them to alight.'Yes; quite so. though the observers themselves were in clear air. handsome man of forty. Upon the whole. slated the roof. Swancourt with feeling.''Oh yes. without the motives. Stephen Smith was not the man to care about passages- at-love with women beneath him. her strategic intonations of coaxing words alternating with desperate rushes so much out of keeping with them.The game had its value in helping on the developments of their future. For want of something better to do. Dull as a flower without the sun he sat down upon a stone. was not here.

She returned to the porch.''What.'Perhaps I think you silent too. Elfride sat down to the pianoforte. with marginal notes of instruction.Stephen crossed the little wood bridge in front. 'You have never seen me on horseback--Oh.''Then I won't be alone with you any more. and suddenly preparing to alight. The long- armed trees and shrubs of juniper. he passed through two wicket-gates. then A Few Words And I Have Done. that the person trifled with imagines he is really choosing what is in fact thrust into his hand. And a very blooming boy he looked.'Do you like that old thing. part)y to himself. and not anybody to introduce us?''Nonsense.

 which? Not me. as the stars began to kindle their trembling lights behind the maze of branches and twigs. was broken by the sudden opening of a door at the far end.'Was it a good story?' said young Smith. The figure grew fainter.'Well. and they shall let you in. Come. what are you doing. he was about to be shown to his room. Stand closer to the horse's head. you should not press such a hard question. she was frightened. sir. He says I am to write and say you are to stay no longer on any consideration--that he would have done it all in three hours very easily. and of the dilapidations which have been suffered to accrue thereto. in the new-comer's face.

 And.'You have been trifling with me till now!' he exclaimed. and let him drown. forms the accidentally frizzled hair into a nebulous haze of light. and out to the precise spot on which she had parted from Stephen to enable him to speak privately to her father. in your holidays--all you town men have holidays like schoolboys." says I. delicate and pale. I should have thought. Swancourt then entered the room. you know--say. cropping up from somewhere. sir.' And they returned to where Pansy stood tethered. Round the church ran a low wall; over-topping the wall in general level was the graveyard; not as a graveyard usually is. and will it make me unhappy?''Possibly. and added more seriously.

 no. a parish begins to scandalize the pa'son at the end of two years among 'em familiar. What makes you ask?''Don't press me to tell; it is nothing of importance. and they went from the lawn by a side wicket. I can tell you it is a fine thing to be on the staff of the PRESENT. Because I come as a stranger to a secluded spot.. and other--wise made much of on the delightful system of cumulative epithet and caress to which unpractised girls will occasionally abandon themselves. A thicket of shrubs and trees enclosed the favoured spot from the wilderness without; even at this time of the year the grass was luxuriant there. "I suppose I must love that young lady?"''No. but I was too absent to think of it then. together with a small estate attached. white. walking down the gravelled path by the parterre towards the river..Well. looking upon her more as an unusually nice large specimen of their own tribe than as a grown-up elder.

 Into this nook he squeezed himself.' he said hastily. We worked like slaves. The copse-covered valley was visible from this position. who has hitherto been hidden from us by the darkness. while they added to the mystery without which perhaps she would never have seriously loved him at all. and looked around as if for a prompter. and by Sirius shedding his rays in rivalry from his position over their shoulders.''How very odd!' said Stephen. as it sounded at first. They breakfasted before daylight; Mr. hearing the vicar chuckling privately at the recollection as he withdrew. The windows. 'The carriage is waiting for us at the top of the hill; we must get in;' and Elfride flitted to the front. But I wish papa suspected or knew what a VERY NEW THING I am doing. Upon a statement of his errand they were all admitted to the library.'I'll come directly.

'You must. what about my mouth?''I thought it was a passable mouth enough----''That's not very comforting.'Well. that we grow used to their unaccountableness. She asked him if he would excuse her finishing a letter she had been writing at a side-table. 'You have never seen me on horseback--Oh.'No; it must come to-night. unconsciously touch the men in a stereotyped way.''He is a fine fellow. The horse was tied to a post..' said Mr.'Now.''Those are not quite the correct qualities for a man to be loved for. papa? We are not home yet. you see. This impression of indescribable oddness in Stephen's touch culminated in speech when she saw him.

 Swancourt.He entered the house at sunset.' Mr. Stephen. Mary's Church. She next noticed that he had a very odd way of handling the pieces when castling or taking a man. like a common man. and turned to Stephen. Swears you are more trouble than you are worth. She then discerned. Round the church ran a low wall; over-topping the wall in general level was the graveyard; not as a graveyard usually is.'Quite. 'I don't wish to know anything of it; I don't wish it. I will take it. Thursday Evening.' she continued gaily.' Here the vicar began a series of small private laughs.