“Don’t it taste good out o’ door?” Alice edged away from him and munched in silence, and presently tears of mortification welled into her eyes. Adam, returning on tiptoe from a cautious expedition to inspect a nuthatch’s nest in the bole of a tree, suddenly took note of her woeful expression, and paused aghast. “What be cryin’ for, maidie?” he asked in so kind a tone, that the tears rolled down upon her cheeks, and a little unexpected sob burst forth. “I don’t know,” she murmured; then, petulantly: “I wish I hadn’t come!” Adam’s face fell. “Don’t ’ee like being here? I thought ye’d be so pleased.” The sense of injury now overcame maidenly reserve. “You do never say a word to I. You don’t so much as look at I. I mid be a stock or a stone,” she added passionately. Adam surveyed her with dawning comprehension; during the silence that intervened the rustling of the leaves could be heard, the distant notes of a lark circling upwards from the downs beyond the woods, the chirp of nestlings, the irrepressible laughter of a gleeful squirrel. Perhaps all this cheerful bustle of the sunshiny spring awoke in the man’s breast certain hitherto dormant instincts. He, too, was young, and love and springtime go hand-in-hand. He stooped, laid a tentative forefinger gently under Alice’s round chin, tilted it slightly, and gazed down into the tearful eyes. “Ye mustn’t cry, my maid,” said he, and then he kissed her. They came out of the wood as the sun was sinking, hand-in-hand as before, but walking sedately now, and with a glow upon their faces other than the glow which was dyeing the fir-boles crimson, and making the gorse flame. Alice was in the seventh heaven, and as for Adam, perhaps he too had learnt a new secret in the greenwood, the existence of which had been hitherto unguessed. “Well?” said Mrs. Cluett as the couple parted by the yard door. “Well,” returned Alice, with a conscious laugh. “You do seem to be gettin’ along,” pursued the mother. “E-es, we be gettin’ along,” conceded Alice, but no more would she say. She was subsequently forced to own to herself, however, that they did not get on very fast. Adam was incomprehensible to her, and frequently exasperating; and more than once he seemed puzzled and irritated by things that Alice said and did. Mrs. Cluett, for her part, blamed them both with equal impartiality. Now she would aver that Alice was a simpleton, now that Adam was a fool. Was the thing to be or was it not to be? she wanted to know; even if it was to be Mrs. Cluett was not sure that she cared so very much about it; but if it was not to be, there was no manner of use in Alice wasting her time.