He drew it tenderly, and another larger crimson drop welled up, and stood on the delicate white thumb. “It is out.”
“You are sure the point is not left in?” He bent over to examine more carefully. The sunbeams lit up her beautiful hand; temptation overcame him and he kissed it, and the crimson drop stained his lip.
“Sir!” She angrily snatched it away. At the same moment she saw Geoffrey looking through the parted bushes behind Valentine, who did not know he was so near.
“A moment!” cried Valentine, in the flood of his passion. “Listen. I love—”
But she rushed from him. Valentine followed her. Geoffrey let the bushes come together, and Valentine did not see him. Margaret went towards May’s merry laugh, which she could hear not far off.
“May! May!”
“Here I am—by the oak.”
Then Felix, knowing his tête-à-tête with May was almost at an end, snatched a kiss.
“I will go up to the mill again,” said he. “I will succeed this time.”
“Beware of the blackthorn,” laughed May, and was very innocently engaged looking at a sprig of oak with three young acorns on it when Margaret came.