Anne could be a very amusing companion; for she had quick wits; and that for companionship is far better than being well educated. She would tell Meadowes all about her life; excepting one episode only, no mention of which ever crossed her lips—of the men who had courted her, and the women who had hated her, of the straits of poverty, and all she had seen and suffered and enjoyed in her five-and-twenty years’ pilgrimage. In return, she would ask Meadowes about the unknown world to which he belonged. Had they always enough to eat without thinking about it or working for it? (‘Lord sakes, how grand!’) Had they never to walk when they were weary, or toil when they were faint? Was it possible he had never known what it was to be cold for want of clothing, or run out of fuel in the winter? (‘You scarce know you’re alive!’) Or, sorest strait of all, was it possible he had never known sickness and want together? (‘You’ve not felt the Lord’s hand on you yet then, Dick.’) And she would listen with delight to Meadowes’ tales of his world. Outwardly, indeed, Anne was cheerful enough now; Meadowes began to think she was forgetting the past. Only her entire silence about Sebastian Shepley seemed to mark any feeling on the subject. Yet every now and then he fancied she was thinking of her former lover. Once as they walked together down the lane on a lovely summer night—the birds were singing as if their little throats would burst, the year’s jubilee was at its height—Meadowes turned to her in his sudden, impulsive way. ‘’Tis fine to be alive and young,’ he said; ‘and the birds sing like the angels of Paradise!’ ‘I think to have heard the sparrows in the Green Park——’ Anne began to say, almost as if she were speaking to herself—then she broke off in the middle of her sentence and turned away. A moment later she added— ‘You do speak rarely clear, Dick—for all the world like a flute’s note. I like to hearken to your voice better than them birds by far.’ Meadowes was charmed with this pretty speech; he flung his arm round Anne’s waist and kissed her. She looked up at him with her brown eyes full of tears; but they may have been tears of mirth, for all she said was, ‘Good sakes! but men be mortal vain,’ and with that she drew herself away from his embrace. ‘Why should she cry over the sparrows in the Green Park?’ Meadowes wondered; how should he know how often Anne had walked there with Sebastian Shepley?