Innocent Her Fancy and His Fact

aving long ago wandered out of straight and even courses and taken to meandering aimlessly into many ruts and furrows under

with their small bright green stars swung pendent from over-shadowing boughs like garlands for a sylvan festival. Or the thousands of tiny unassuming herbs which grew up with the growing speargrass, bringing with them pungent odours from the soil as from some deep-laid storehouse of precious spices. These choice delights were the old by-road's peculiar possession, and through a wild maze of beauty and fragrance it strayed on with a careless awkwardness, getting more and more involved in tangles of green,-till at last, recoiling abruptly as it were upon its own steps, it stopped short at the entrance to a cleared space in front of a farmyard. With this the old by-road had evidently no sort of business whatever, and ended altogether, as it were, with a rough shock of surprise at finding itself in such open quarters. No arching trees or twining brambles were here,-it was a wide, clean brick-paved place chiefly possessed by a goodly company of promising fowls, and a huge cart-horse. The horse was tied to his

of the unkind or harsh emotions. It was soft and delicately featured, and its rose-white tints were illumined by grave, deeply-set grey eyes that were full of wistful and questioning pathos. In stature she was below the middle height and slight of build, so that she seemed a mere child at first sight, with nothing particularly attractive about her except, perhaps, her hands. These were daintily shaped and characteristic of inbred refinement, and as they hung listlessly at her sides looked scarcely less white than the white cotton frock she wore. She turned presently with a movement of i

Oh yes, ever so much! Only you can't tell me so! I'

nectar, distilled from peaceful years upon years of sunbeams and stainless dew. The girl, still carrying her pet dove, walked slowly along the narrow gravelled paths that encircled the flower-beds and box-borders, till, reaching a low green door at the further end of the garden, she opened it and passed through into a newly mown field, where several lads and men were about busily employed in raking together the last swaths of a full crop of hay and adding them to the last waggon which stood in the centre of the ground, horseless, and piled to an almost toppling height. One young fellow, with a crimson silk tie knotted about his open shirt-collar, stood on top of the lofty fragrant load, fork in hand, tossing the additional heaps together as they were thrown up to him. The afternoon sun blazed burningly down on his uncovered head and bare brown arms, and as he shook and turned the hay with untiring energy, his movements were full of the easy grace and picturesqueness which are often the uncons

ride home o

hesi

I'm not sure,

Robin if you

ips. She bent her head over the

please Robin

parkled with a

" he said, sharply-"Pleas

YOU, Dad!" she said, g

came from the man on top of the haywaggon. He had paused in his labour, and his face was turned towards the o

!" he shouted-"Re

rew his pipe

ddressing the girl in a sof

in the last sweepings of the hay stood aside for her to pas

" he asked, with

response, but

load looked down. His blue eyes

coming?"

lance

ike," she

half-tenderly; "You know I like! Why,

ed bird," she said

hugging him like that! Let hi

y without assistance, still holding the dove,

tably down in the soft, sweet-smelling hay. "Now

come of your own accord?" asked the

e answered; "I should never

Turning away from her he

ys! Fetch Roger

ndulating foliage in the far distance. The men began to scatter here and there, putting aside t

le H

sat impassively on the

What

oming alon

ook his head

s the last lo

ind of farewell salute towards the waggon, repeat

ed the girl, who sat quiet, caressing the dove she held. He was undeniably good-looking, with an open nobility of feature which is uncommon enough among well-born and carefully-nurtured specimens of the human race, and is perhaps still more rarely to be f

u feeli

ned with a glea

always

as kind as you a

id! You're je

little ne

nt! I grudge him the privilege of lying there on your dear little w

lous,-he turned up

at him wi

"I should think no more of kis

with a gestur

sed at all that wa

y n

the right way. A b

ughed

ugh he may have a bird

w clever

aned

-"I want to ride home on th

peal of laugh

al person!" she said. "If he'll go

sed, gravely hopped up to her shoulder and sat

!" she said,-"

of her hands in his own,-"but he always has so much of you; he nestles under

," said Innocent,

said, wistfully. "Innocen

at him critically,-the

But I have often

d his eyes gre

figure and a good face, and kind eyes and well-shaped feet and hands,-and I like the look of you just now with that open collar and that gleam of sunlight in your curly hair-and

, and laug

y! To ple

are charming,-and I shouldn't mind kissing

What would it

h the illumination of an

ou look pretty!

and with an angry ge

a fool of me!" h

lovely, and I tell you so. Tha

n is never lovely

t, placidly. "That's why I ad

to me," he decla

as a touch of compa

obin!"

f exquisite tenderness and fascination seemed to environ her small and delicate personality with an atmosphere o

" he said,-"Pity

nly pity you because you are foolish. No one b

ger, but there was no one in the field now except the venerable personage he called Uncle Hugo, who was still smoking away hi

r you have the sweetest mouth in the world! And you have the prettiest hair,-not raw gold which I hate,-but soft brown, with delicious little sunbeams lost in it,-and s

oured a

she said,-"It's like po

ith fond insistence. "An

tures-"that's not possible. You could never MAKE me do anything! A

instantly, and

d Cupid!" Here he laughed rather bitterly.

-"It's a name that was given to the g

't teach me my A.B.C.,"

laughing, and

once a l

ho, He

sweet with

ho, He

fled by the hay, escaped and flew like a little web of

he song," he said,-"'Lo

!'" she hummed, with a m

nward vexatio

pid is a ridiculous na

demurely,-"And the rhyme expresses

think tha

I shouldn't know how. Everything clever has been

s with you! I wish we had never found that ol

n I thought you were. The books t

u get the queerest ideas into your head, and all the time the world goes on in ways that are quite different from what YOU are thinkin

them! Oh, Cupid, hear! Envy them! Why should I e

claimed,-"Mr. and Mrs. Pettigre

other,-and Mrs. Pettigrew's hands were always dreadfully red, and Mr. Pettigrew's fingers were always dirty,-and they married very quickly,-and now they'

d Robin, crossly,-"I know! And I sup

"You never could, you never would be a Pettigrew! But it al

" said Robin,

ge ends-in

noc

el quite guilty! Now,-if you talk of names,-THERE'S a name to

years 402 and 1724," said Robin, promptly,-"and one of them, Innoc

m, Robin! But all the same, I don't believe any girl ever had such a name as I

mal names," he explain

ocent the Third was Car

ote a book called 'De

manae Cond

with a comically respectful air of attention, and then laug

n! No wonder the village girls adore you! 'De,'-what is it? 'Contemptu Mundi,' and Misery Human Conditions! Poo

e was Lothario," s

suddenly

as baptised?" she qu

ppose

ve any other name

f a squat stout woman in a brown spotted print gown and white sunbonnet, who

Mister Jocelyn!

le in," he said, and making a

iscilla! W

rd jerk in his direction a

ome! Wantin

e farmhouse. But before he went he raised his straw hat again and stood for a moment bareheaded in the roseate glory of the sinking sun. Innocent s

alled-"Dad,

his head t

Stay where you

and opening the green gate leading thereto, disappeared. The sun-bonneted individual called Priscilla walked or rather wadd

couple up there! Wha

e doing," said Robin,

u think Uncle Hu

nt nutmeg, and almost as deeply marked with contra

sself," she

't." Priscilla jerked her sunbonnet a little fur

satisfied. Now there's another doctor from London staying up 'ere for 'is own poor 'elth, and yer Uncle said he'd like to 'ave 'is opinion,-so Mr. Slowton,

cheerfully,-"Uncle Hugo is getting old

a sniffe

ot! What are you t

back with Roger. Th

d now an' tappin' another barrel to drink at when the waggon comes in. There's no animals on earth as

rather like a large spotted mushroom mysteriously set i

the hay, this time without Cupid. He had flown

. If he were to die,-" At the mere thought her eyes filled with tears. "He

-that people should grow old, and die, and pass away from us. What should I do with

" he sai

a sigh; "and it's very kind of you. I wish

try?" he

f me-but there it is! I love-I simply adore"-and she threw out her arms with an embracing gesture-"all the trees and plants and birds!-and everything about the farm and the farmhouse itself-it's just the sweetest home in the world! There's not a

But never mind, dear!-we won't talk of it any more, just

queried, with a

e!" he answ

beauty and mystery which thrills the air with the approach of evening, made all the simple pastoral scene a dream of incommunicable loveliness,-and the two youthful figures, throned on their high dais of golden-green hay, might have passed for the rustic Adam and Eve of some newly created Eden. They were both very quiet,-with the tense quietness of hearts that are too full for spee

, Innocent! Whatever happens,