The dimpling smile showed the shining pearly line of little teeth; the soft fingers of the little hand touched his hand as she withdrew them; and, leaning back against her oak tree, she laughed joyously: "I have found a fellow-sinner." "Ambition can be noble, rather than evil, and to aspire is not to sin. Who could help being ambitious, with you as the apostle of ambition? You enforce with your beauty each word that you utter!" "You think me _beautiful_?" said Circe, in sweetest wonderment, as if she had not studied dress, look, pose, gesture, minutely to enhance her wonderful and rich endowments of nature. "Words cannot tell how fair. A verse keeps singing through my brain; it is this: "'And she, my Doris, whose lap incloses Wild summer roses of sweet perfume, The while I sued her, smiled and hearkened, Till daylight darkened from glow to gloom.'" Ah, this was something like, thought Doris, to be wooed and flattered in poetry. She dropped her dainty lids, the rose pink deepened in her cheeks, and she gave a slow, sweet sigh. "Did you make that poetry?" "No: but would I could make immortal verses, for your sake," said Earle. "The world should hear of you." The world! Oh, rare delight! Had she not dreamed of driving men mad for love, of making poets sing, and artists paint her charms? And these conquests were begun. She looked up archly. She knew when to check the tides of enthusiasm and adoration, that they might grow stronger for the repression. "Away with poetry, my singer, here comes prose." Over the field toward them strode honest Mark Brace, looking for his neophyte in rural toils. Mark's round face was crimson with heat and exertion, but a broad smile responded to the pretty picture these two young lovers made under the tree. He cried, heartily: "A deal you are learning this morning, Master Earle. Will you put off your lessons in wheat-stacking till next year? Lindenholm farm, at this rate, will be a model farm to the county when the madam turns it over to you." "I was not in working humor," said Earle. "Work won't wait for humors," quoth Mark. "And for you, my pretty miss, I don't doubt your sister is making butter and your mother cooking dinner, while you are playing shepherdess under a tree." "Do I look as if I could work?" laughed Doris, springing to her feet and extending a wee rose-leaf hand. "I am only for ornament, not use. But I will leave Mr. Moray, for 'evil communications corrupt good manners,' and I have made him lazy. Good-bye, poet. 'Blessings brighten as they take their flight;' so I expect to look more and more charming as I depart homeward." The minx knew that she had done enough that day to turn Earle Moray's head, and it would be well to let the effect deepen in absence. She danced off homeward, and Earle whispered under his breath: