"My hair! It's all come down—look at it!"
"I've been doing so ever since I—met you," Barnabas confessed.
"Oh, have you! Then why didn't you tell me of it—and I've lost nearly all my hairpins—and—oh dear! what will they think?"
"That it is the most beautiful hair in all the world, of course," said Barnabas. She was already busy twisting it into a shining rope, but here she paused to look up at him from under this bright nimbus, and with two hair-pins in her mouth.
"Oh!" said she again very thoughtfully, and then "Do you think so?" she inquired, speaking over and round the hairpins as it were.
"Yes," said Barnabas, steady-eyed; and immediately down came the curling lashes again, while with dexterous white fingers she began to transform the rope into a coronet.
"I'm afraid it won't hold up," she said, giving her head a tentative shake, "though, fortunately, I haven't far to go."
"How far?" asked Barnabas.
"To Annersley House, sir."
"Yes," said Barnabas, "that is very near—the glade yonder leads into the park."