Bob Garnet, with his trowel, and box, and net, and many other impediments, was going along very merrily, in a quiet path of the Forest, thinking sometimes of Amy and her fundamental errors, and sometimes of Eoa, and the way she could catch a butterfly, but for the most part busy with the display of life around him, and the prospects of a great boring family, which he had found in a willow–tree. Suddenly, near the stag–headed oak, he chanced upon Miss Nowell, tripping along the footpath lightly, smiling and blushing rosily, and oh! so surprised to see him! She darted aside, like a trout at a shadow, then, finding it too late for that game, she tried to pass him rapidly, with her long eyelashes drooping. “Oh, please to stop a minute, if you can spare the time,” said Bob; “what have I done to offend you?” She stopped in a moment at his voice, and lifted her radiant eyes to him, and shyly tried to cloud away the sparkling night of hair, through which her white and slender throat gleamed like the Milky Way. The sprays of the wood and the winds of May had romped with her glorious tresses; and now she had been lectured so, that she doubted her right to exhibit her hair. “Miss Nowell,” said Bob, as she had not answered, but only been thinking about him, “only please to stop and tell me what I have done to offend you; and you do love beetles so—and you never saw such beauties—what have I done to offend you?” An English maiden would have said, “Oh, nothing at all, Mr. Garnet;” and then swept on, with her crinoline embracing a thousand brambles. But Eoa stood just where she was, with her bright lips pouting slightly, and her gaze absorbed by a tuft of moss. “Only because you are not at all good–natured to me, Bob. But it doesnʼt make much difference.” Then she turned away from him, and began to sing a little song, and then called, “Amy, Amy!” “Donʼt call Amy. I donʼt want her.” “Oh, I beg your pardon, Iʼm sure I rather thought you did.” “Eoa,” said Bob; and she looked at him, and the tears were in her eyes. And then she whispered, “Yes, Bob.” “You have got on the very prettiest dress I ever saw in all my life.” Here Bob was alarmed at his own audacity, and durst not watch the effect of his speech. “Oh, is that all?” she answered. “But I am very glad indeed that you like—my frock, Bob.” Here she looked down at it, with much interest. “And, to tell you the truth,” continued he, “I think, if you will please not to be offended, that you look very well in it.” “Oh yes, I am very well. I wish I was ill, sometimes.” “Now, I donʼt mean that. What I mean is, very nice.” “Well, I always try to be nice. But how can I, out butterfly–hunting?” “Now, you wonʼt understand me. You are as bad as a weevil that wonʼt take chloroform. What I mean is, very pretty.” “I donʼt know anything about that,” said Eoa, drawing back; “and I donʼt see that you have any right even to talk about it. Oh, there goes a lovely butterfly!”