"No, I will not, Grace!"
"Then I will tie it with a lock of my own hair," she said, in a sportive manner, running her fingers through her auburn tresses; and, selecting one that was like a silken braid for its soft and shining texture, she prepared to sever it from her temples.
"You provoking child, you will have your own way," said Kate, shaking forward the dark cloud of her abundant hair, and intwining her finger in a jetty tress that rivalled the sable hue of the night swallow's dark and glossy wing.
"Half an hour since you verily would have parted with every lock to be assured the sacrifice would bring him to you; and now, forsooth, scarcely will you part with a strand to bind a note. There!" she added, clipping a beautiful ringlet that Kate had selected from the rest; "now all that is wanted is wax—no, not that! I will fasten it with a true-lover's-knot, which will be far better; will it not, coz?"
As she said this she looked up with a bright light dancing in her dark hazel eyes; and, without waiting for a reply, in a few seconds tied, with great gravity, the mysterious knot she had mentioned, and gave the billet to her cousin for the superscription. "Write, 'These: to the hands of Robert, Lord Lester, of Castle More, greeting,'" she said, with gravity.
"Nay, I will direct it simply 'Lester, Castle More,'" she said, decidedly.
"By which," said Grace, laughing, "you avoid the distant respect conveyed in my own on the one hand, and the tenderness that is ready to gush from your heart on the other. Love certainly does make his votaries skilful tacticians! Truly, now, is not this a proper love-billet—written in a lattice by the light of the moon, and tied with a braid of the lady's hair in a true-love-knot? Well, when I am in love I shall know how to manage rightly all these little affairs."
"Who is to be our Mercury on this occasion?" inquired Kate, with a little doubt in the tones of her voice. "I fear we shall have to trust it to a moonbeam also."
"Something more substantial, I assure you," said the good-humoured maiden, in a very positive manner.
"Not one of the menials, for the world!"