"Then you admit she might be woman enough to take to heart whatever ill would come to me?" Hugh asked eagerly. Jack's answer was guarded, although not lacking in kindly feeling. "The child has a warm heart, Hugh, and has known you long enough to feel deep sorrow should any evil come to you--which God forbid. But take my advice, and do not stir deeper thought in her, to make her sorrow like a woman, but let her keep her child's heart awhile longer." After the young men had bidden each other more than a usually cordial good-night, Hugh Knollys remained seated for a long time in his own room, his hands deep in his pockets, and his legs stretched to their uttermost length. He was lost in thoughts that were neither entirely pleasurable nor yet altogether lacking in that quality. He had loved Dorothy since she was a child, and he admired her character far more than that of any girl he had ever known. The reckless daring of her nature--the trait Aunt Penine had censured so severely, and which the others of the family regarded somewhat askance--met with a quick sympathy from his own impulsive temperament; and this last outburst of her intrepid spirit had acted like a torch to set aflame all his dreams and desires. And now the suspicion that some sort of an understanding existed between the girl and this young Britisher gave him a fierce desire to speak out, and claim for his own that which he feared the other man might seek to take from him. And so he chafed at his friend's injunction, hoping as he did, that, could he but obtain the first hearing, the redcoat's chances might be weakened, if not destroyed altogether. As he sat here alone, there came to him like a flash the memory of one late afternoon in a long-ago autumn, when, upon his return from a fishing-trip, he found Dorothy--then a dimpled mite of seven or eight--visiting his mother, as she often did in those days. The child had been left to amuse herself alone; and this she did by taking down a powder-horn hanging upon the wall, filled with some cherished bullets which Hugh was hoarding as priceless treasures. He seemed to see again the great dark room, lit only by the leaping flames from the logs piled in the open fireplace, and the little scarlet-clad child looking up with big startled eyes at his indignant face as he stood in the doorway, while the precious bullets poured in a rattling shower over the wooden' floor. He saw once more her look turn to fiery anger, as he strode over and boxed her ears; and he could hear the girlish treble crying, "Wait, Hugh Knollys, until I am as big as you, and I'll hurt you sorely for that!" Aye, and she had already hurt him sorely, for all his breadth of shoulder and length of limb; she had hurt him in a way to make all his life a bitter sorrow should she now reject his love! CHAPTER XIX October had come, with an unusual glory of late wild-flowers and reddened leaves.