"Good-night, my heart!"
She listened to the last faint echo of his footfall, and then she sought her bed, and, smiling happily, fell asleep, with the daisies on her pillow.
[CHAPTER III.]
Between midnight and sunrise a slight shower had fallen, scarcely damping the ground, but sufficient to draw out the perfume of the young flowers. The promise of spring was fulfilled, and tender bloom peeped up in places, and in others showed itself more boldly. About the trunks of ancient trees the sweet woodruff lurked; in sunny hedges the "cuckoo buds of yellow hue" proclaimed themselves; the heart-shaped leaves of the Irish shamrock were slowly unfolding; species of wild geranium and the strangely shaped orchises were abundant, the general commonwealth being represented by myriads of golden buttercups. Nansie and Kingsley stood near a great hawthorn, not yet in full bud, but already emitting a deliciously fine fragrance born of the light rain which had fallen during the night.
"Why, Nansie," Kingsley was saying to her, "I never suspected you had gypsy blood in you."
"I have none, as you know," was her response. "It was my father's whim, for which, I dare say, if he were here and was inclined to do so, he could give you several reasons. You can guess some of them, Kingsley."
"The first and foremost is that he wished to keep us apart. He has not succeeded. I would hunt you all over the world, Nansie."
"You must not be unjust to my father," said Nansie, "He was always full of fancies, Kingsley, but never harbored a bad one; and you must remember he does not know our secret yet. I love and honor him; he is a good man."
"Or you could not have been his daughter. Full of fancies, indeed!" And Kingsley turned his head in the direction of the caravan. "Surely this is the strangest that ever entered the head of man! A gentleman and a scholar--for he is both, Nansie, and I suppose it was partly through your breeding that I was drawn to you--to go wandering through the land with his daughter, as though they belonged to the lost tribes! But there is an odd pleasantry about it that tickles one, after all."
"You would enjoy it, Kingsley," said Nansie, with a delicious laugh, nestling close to him; "it has really been delightful."