thoroughly as I did then. I can see the rim of the sinking sun
burning fiery red low down between the trees on the left, and then
suddenly dropping out of sight. I can see on the right the lustre of
the high-tide sea. I can hear the 'che-eu-chew, che-eu-chew.' of the
wood-pigeons in Graylingham Wood. I can smell the very scent of the
bean flowers drinking in the evening dews. I did not feel that I was
going home as the sharp gables of the Hall gleamed through the
chestnut-trees. My home for evermore was the breast of that lovely
child, between whom and myself such a strange delicious sympathy had
sprung up. I felt there was no other home for me.

'Why, child, where _have_ you been?' said my mother, as she saw me
trying to slip to bed unobserved, in order that happiness such as
mine might not he brought into coarse contact with servants. 'Child,
where _have_ you been, and what has possessed you? Your face is
positively shining with joy, and your eyes, they alarm me, they are
so unnaturally bright. I hope you are not going to have an illness.'

I did not tell her, but went to my room, which now was on the ground
floor, and sat watching the rooks sailing home in the sunset till the
last one had gone, and the voices of the blackbirds grew less
clamorous, and the trees began to look larger and larger in the dusk.



IV

The next day I was again at Wynne's cottage, and the next, and the
next. We two, Winifred and I, used to stroll out together through the
narrow green lanes, and over the happy fields, and about the