The flatness, the monotony of the Fens, the absence of unshackled nature, the treelessness of the region, the lack of everything that can arrest the changing lights and passing shadows, combine to make the district one to send a chill into the mind of the visitor. Flat as the sea, it is devoid of its diversity of tint and tumultuous or glassy beauty. Nevertheless, the fen exercises a charm over the mind and holds with a spell the heart of the native. He can live nowhere else. He will not emigrate. He feels bound to spend all his days in the fen. Only when the vital spark expires does his body leave the turf to repose in the clay of the islet graveyards. That the farmer and landowner should love the fen is not marvellous, because of the richness of the soil and the profits they make out of it; but why the labourer should cling to the spongy turf is not so explicable. He may be discontented, and be a grumbler, but he is discontented with his lot, and envies the taverner or the smuggler on the Fens, grumbles at the hardness of his work or the lowness of his pay; but he is not discontented because the fen is so flat, and he has no word against its hideousness, or, at least, its uniformity. One reason why the labourer in the Fens does not think of leaving it may be that he uses tools there different from those employed elsewhere, and he would have to learn his trade anew, employ unfamiliar tools, and be subjected to ridicule when handling them awkwardly. It is strange, but true, that those men are more naturally prone to leave their homes who inhabit mountainous lands than such as dwell in level districts. How far was Mark going? How Zita flashed past the windmills, some of which had their sails in motion! A little rising ground showed, with some trees clustered on it—that must be Littleport. 'Mark,' said Zita suddenly, 'I want to ask you a question.' 'Say on,' said he, and relaxed the speed at which he was spinning her along, and finally came to a standstill. How pretty she was, with her glowing cheeks, her cherry lips, the light of the winter sun in her soft hazel eyes and in her rich, burnished, chestnut hair! How pretty that hair was now, in some confusion, puffed out of its order, the coppery strands on her brow, one down her cheek! The wildness of her appearance thus untidied by the wind made her more than ever charming. Mark looked with eyes that could not be satiated with looking. But it was not merely her beauty that struck him. It was the exuberant happiness that seemed to be bursting forth at her eyes, running out of her little head in every shining hair, glowing in those bright-tinted cheeks, burning in those carnation-red lips. 'Well, my dear little Zita, what is it?' 'Mark, it is something I have thought about and have puzzled over. It seems strange to speak about it now—now when I am so joyous—and it is connected with things so sad to me and to you.' 'But what is it, little rogue?'