St. George and St. Michael | Page 4

them the stars were
beginning to recall their half-forgotten message from regions unknown
to men. A moment, and she went up to the dial, stood there for another
moment, and was on the point of turning to leave the spot, when, as if
with one great bound, a youth stood between her and the entrance of
the alley.
'Ah ha, mistress Dorothy, you do not escape me so!' he cried, spreading
out his arms as if to turn back some runaway creature.
But mistress Dorothy was startled, and mistress Dorothy did not choose
to be startled, and therefore mistress Dorothy was dignified, if not
angry.
'I do not like such behaviour, Richard,' she said. 'It ill suits with the
time. Why did you hide behind the hedge, and then leap forth so
rudely?'
'I thought you saw me,' answered the youth. 'Pardon my heedlessness,
Dorothy. I hope I have not startled you too much.'

As he spoke he stooped over the hand he had caught, and would have
carried it to his lips, but the girl, half-pettishly, snatched it away, and,
with a strange mixture of dignity, sadness, and annoyance in her tone,
said--
'There has been something too much of this, Richard, and I begin to be
ashamed of it.'
'Ashamed!' echoed the youth. 'Of what? There is nothing but me to be
ashamed of, and what can I have done since yesterday?'
'No, Richard; I am not ashamed of you, but I am ashamed of--of--this
way of meeting--and--and----'
'Surely that is strange, when we can no more remember the day in
which we have not met than that in which we met first! No, dear
Dorothy----'
'It is not our meeting, Richard; and if you would but think as honestly
as you speak, you would not require to lay upon me the burden of
explanation. It is this foolish way we have got into of late--kissing
hands--and--and--always meeting by the old sun-dial, or in some other
over-quiet spot. Why do you not come to the house? My mother would
give you the same welcome as any time these last--how many years,
Richard?'
'Are you quite sure of that, Dorothy?'
'Well--I did fancy she spoke with something more of ceremony the last
time you met. But, consider, she has seen so much less of you of late.
Yet I am sure she has all but a mother's love in her heart towards you.
For your mother was dear to her as her own soul.'
'I would it were so, Dorothy! For then, perhaps, your mother would not
shrink from being my mother too. When we are married, Dorothy--'
'Married!' exclaimed the girl. 'What of marrying, indeed!' And she
turned sideways from him with an indignant motion. 'Richard,' she
went on, after a marked and yet but momentary pause, for the youth
had not had time to say a word, 'it has been very wrong in me to meet
you after this fashion. I know it now, for see what such things lead to!
If you knew it, you have done me wrong.'
'Dearest Dorothy!' exclaimed the youth, taking her hand again, of
which this time she seemed hardly aware, 'did you not know from the
very vanished first that I loved you with all my heart, and that to tell
you so would have been to tell the sun that he shines warm at noon in

midsummer? And I did think you had a little--something for me,
Dorothy, your old playmate, that you did not give to every other
acquaintance. Think of the houses we have built and the caves we have
dug together--of our rabbits, and urchins, and pigeons, and peacocks!'
'We are children no longer,' returned Dorothy. 'To behave as if we were
would be to keep our eyes shut after we are awake. I like you, Richard,
you know; but why this--where is the use of all this--new sort of thing?
Come up with me to the house, where master Herbert is now talking to
my mother in the large parlour. The good man will be glad to see you.'
'I doubt it, Dorothy. He and my father, as I am given to understand,
think so differently in respect of affairs now pending betwixt the
parliament and the king, that--'
'It were more becoming, Richard, if the door of your lips opened to the
king first, and let the parliament follow.'
'Well said!' returned the youth with a smile. 'But let it be my excuse
that I speak as I am wont to hear.'
The girl's hand had lain quiet in that of the youth, but now it started
from it like a scared bird. She stepped two paces back, and drew herself
up.
'And you, Richard?' she said, interrogatively.
'What would you ask, Dorothy?' returned the youth,