As to the possessor of the title now slowly and steadily making his way toward her she was in a mere state of wonder. It was not possible that he had lost his way; but if so, she was sorry that, in losing it, he had found the slender zigzag of her path. A trustful child,--save where Hugon was concerned,--she was not in the least afraid, and being of a friendly mind looked at the approaching figure with shy kindliness, and thought that he must have come from a distant part of the country. She thought that had she ever seen him before she would have remembered it. Upon the outskirts of the ring, clear of the close embrace of flowering bush and spreading vine. Haward paused, and looked with smiling eyes at this girl of the woods, this forest creature that, springing from the earth, had set its back against the tree. “Tarry awhile,” he said. “Slip not yet within the bark. Had I known, I should have brought oblation of milk and honey.” “This is the thicket between Fair View and the glebe lands,” said Audrey, who knew not what bark of tree and milk and honey had to do with the case. “Over yonder, sir, is the road to the great house. This path ends here; you must go back to the edge of the wood, then turn to the south”-- “I have not lost my way,” answered Haward, still smiling. “It is pleasant here in the shade, after the warmth of the open. May I not sit down upon the leaves and talk to you for a while? I came out to find you, you know.” As he spoke, and without waiting for the permission which he asked, he crossed the rustling leaves, and threw himself down upon the earth between two branching roots. Her skirt brushed his knee; with a movement quick and shy she put more distance between them, then stood and looked at him with wide, grave eyes. “Why do you say that you came here to find me?” she asked. “I do not know you.” Haward laughed, nursing his knee and looking about him. “Let that pass for a moment. You have the prettiest woodland parlor, child! Tell me, do they treat you well over there?” with a jerk of his thumb toward the glebe house. “Madam the shrew and his reverence the bully, are they kind to you? Though they let you go like a beggar maid,”--he glanced kindly enough at her bare feet and torn gown,--“yet they starve you not, nor beat you, nor deny you aught in reason?” Audrey drew herself up. She had a proper pride, and she chose to forget for this occasion a bruise upon her arm and the thrusting upon her of Hugon’s company. “I do not know who you are, sir, that ask me such questions,” she said sedately. “I have food and shelter and--and--kindness. And I go barefoot only of week days”--