‘Do not be angry,’ he said quickly; ‘I meant to tell you another time when I had come to know you better, but after all why should I not tell you now? I saw a picture of you in London. I stayed a day or two there on my way through from Liverpool—I had some business to do for a friend in New York—and I went to the Academy, and there, in the very first room, I saw your picture.’ ‘My picture!’ ejaculated she. ‘It must have been the one that London gentleman said he would paint.’ ‘Yes, it was you—you yourself; and you were lying in a cornfield under a shock of wheat, and the corner of your house could just be seen in the distance, and some of the men were reaping a little way off—but you were fast asleep.’ Rosalie’s heart was thumping in a most unusual way, and her breath came so pantingly that she did not trust herself to speak. ‘’T was a big picture,’ he said; ‘full of sunshine, and when I saw it—the whole thing—the great field stretching away, and the men working, and the quiet old house in the distance, and the girl sleeping so placidly—it was all so glowing, and yet so peaceful and homelike that my heart went out to it. “That’s Dorset,” I said, and I believe I cried—I know I felt as if I could cry. After all those years of wandering to find, when I thought myself all alone in a great strange city, that piece of home smiling at one—I tell you it made one feel queer.’ Rosalie remained silent, angry with herself for the agitation which had taken possession of her. ‘So you see I was not quite so far wrong in saying that to-day’s meeting was a very strange one. The first instant my eyes fell upon you I recognised you.’ She felt she must say something, but her voice sounded husky and quite unlike itself when she spoke. ‘It certainly was odd that we should come across each other near Dorchester. It would of course have been quite natural if you had recognised me when you came to your uncle’s.’ ‘I thought you would have been more interested in my story,’ he said reproachfully, after a pause. ‘I am—I am very much interested; I think it a very funny story.’ ‘Funny!’ he repeated, and then relapsed into silence, which remained unbroken until they turned in at Rosalie’s gate. CHAPTER II A thousand thorns, and briers, and stings I have in my poor breast; Yet ne’er can see that salve which brings My passion any rest. HERRICK. ‘WELL, my boy, I be main glad you be come back. There bain’t no place like home, be there?’ As Isaac Sharpe repeated these words for the twentieth time since his nephew’s arrival, he beamed affectionately upon him through the fragrant steam of the bowl of punch specially brewed in his honour, and then, leaning back in his chair, sighed and shook his head.