"Never, while you ask me in such fashion." And he tightened his clasp still more. "Listen to me!" he exclaimed passionately. "I have been eating my heart out for dreary weeks because I could see no chance to have speech with you. I felt that I could kill the men I've seen riding with you about the country. And now that I have this opportunity, I mean to make the most of it, for who can say when another will come to me?" His words were drying her tears, as might a scorching wind; and she stood mute, with drooping head. "Don't be angry with me for what I have said," he entreated, "nor because I found it was you who played that trick upon me. That prank of yours is the happiest thing I have to remember. You might lock me up there every day, and I would only bless you for being close enough to me to do it." He stopped and looked at her beseechingly. But she would not raise her eyes, and stood pushing at the spray of asters with the tip of her little buckled shoe, while she asked, "Think you I only find pleasure in going about the country to lock folk up?" She spoke with perfect seriousness; and yet there was that in her look and manner to make his heart give a great bound. "I think of nothing, care for nothing," he replied, almost impatiently, "save that you are the sweetest little girl I ever met." Something in his voice made Dorothy glance up at his face, and she saw his eyes bent upon her lips with a look that startled her into a fear of what he might have in his mind to do. So, drawing herself up, she said with all the dignity she could muster, "Such speech may perchance be an English custom, sir; but 't is not such as gentlemen in our country think proper to address to a girl they may chance upon, as you have me." "Sweet Mistress Dorothy," and he seemed to dwell lovingly upon her name, "I crave your pardon. I meant no lightness nor disrespect. And if I have lost my head, and with it my manners, you have but to look into your mirror, and you'll surely see why." Dorothy knew not how to reply to this bold speech, and the look that came with it. They made her angry, and yet she knew that the flush upon her cheeks did not come from anger alone, but that a certain undefinable pleasure had much to do with it. Then came the consciousness that she had no right to be where she was, and the fear of danger coming from it. And this was sufficient to make her say with some impatience: "'T is idle to stand here prating in such fashion. Please release my hands, and let me go. I should be well on my way home by now." He bent his head suddenly, and without a word kissed her hands. And the burning touch of his lips made her pulses thrill and her heart beat with what she knew to be delight,--exultation.