and pale, to invent fresh excuses for going over to her uncle's house,
and lingering about the fruit which he dared not snatch.



CHAPTER IV

THE TWO WAYS OF BEING CROST IN LOVE

"I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more."--LOVELACE.

And what all this while has become of the fair breaker of so many
hearts, to whom I have not yet even introduced my readers?

She was sitting in the little farm-house beside the mill, buried in the
green depths of the valley of Combe, half-way between Stow and Chapel,
sulking as much as her sweet nature would let her, at being thus
shut out from all the grand doings at Bideford, and forced to keep a
Martinmas Lent in that far western glen. So lonely was she, in fact,
that though she regarded Eustace Leigh with somewhat of aversion, and
(being a good Protestant) with a great deal of suspicion, she could not
find it in her heart to avoid a chat with him whenever he came down to
the farm and to its mill, which he contrived to do, on I know not what
would-be errand, almost every day. Her uncle and aunt at first looked
stiff enough at these visits, and the latter took care always to make a
third in every conversation; but still Mr. Leigh was a gentleman's
son, and it would not do to be rude to a neighboring squire and a good
customer; and Rose was the rich man's daughter and they poor cousins,
so it would not do either to quarrel with her; and besides, the