And there be twenty dozen left,
And my sweet sailor lad.
He sang with little art, but with every word clear, and as a man alone sings for company of sound.
Rose stood still and heard it out, liking it, but hesitated a little, half hid behind a huge pine,—a pleasant picture of a maiden struck shy of a sudden. What had happened? There is a little timepiece which Cupid winds up. It ticks quietly, and by and by strikes a fateful hour, or we take it out to see how goes the enemy, and behold! it is to-morrow. Love is the fool of time.
Rose stood a moment, as I have said, not forty feet away, a little inclined to retreat,—aware that, if detected, this would mean something, she knew not what. At last, seeing the need of action, she made a strategic movement to left, and said, “Are you looking for Truth?”
“Good heavens! Miss Lyndsay,” and he rose from his seat on the edge of the well. The prettiness of the picture struck him as Rose came forward: the pink gown, fresh from the looms of fairy-land, set fair against the greenwood spaces, the faint excess of color in her cheeks, and the look of unconsciousness which goes surely with natural distinction of carriage.
“Did you come up out of Mother Earth? Are you sure it is you?”
“I am. I came over to give my grilse to Mrs. Maybrook.”
“Our grilse, you remember.”
“I do not; but it is no matter. I came to give Dorothy the grilse.”