When a few minutes later he left her alone, she stood there quivering under the touch of power by which he had silenced her--under the angry sense that she was less and less able as the days went by to draw or drive him into argument. The more thorny her mood became, the more sadly did he seem to hide the treasures of the soul from her. * * * * * These memories, and many like them, were passing and repassing through Laura's mind as she sat listless and sad on the hillside. When at last she shook them off, the light was failing over the western wall of mountains. She had an errand to do for Augustina in the village that lay half-way to the daffodil wood, and she sprang up, wondering whether there was still time for it before dark. As she hurried on towards a stile that lay across the path, she saw a woman approaching on the further side. "Polly!" The figure addressed stood still a moment in astonishment, then ran to meet the speaker. "Laura!--well, I'm sure!" The two girls kissed each other. Laura looked gayly, wistfully, at her cousin. "Polly--are you all very cross with me still?" Polly hesitated and fenced. Laura sighed. But she looked at the stout red-faced woman with a peculiar flutter of pleasure. The air of the wild upland--all the primitive, homely facts of the farm, seemed to come about her again. She had left Bannisdale, choked with feeling, tired with thought. Polly's broad speech and bouncing ways were welcome as a breeze in summer. They sat down on the stile side by side. Laura gave up her errand, and they talked fast. Polly was all curiosity. When was Laura to be married, and what was she to wear? "The plainest thing I can find," said Laura indifferently. "Unless Augustina teases me into something I don't want." Polly inquired if it would be in church. "In a Catholic church," said Laura with a shrug. "No flowers--no music. They just let you be married--that's all." Polly's-eyes jumped with amazement. "Why, I thowt they had everything so grand!" "Not if you will go and marry a heretic like me," said Laura. "Then they make you know your place." "But--but Laura! yo're to be a Romanist too--for sure?" cried Polly in bewilderment. "Do you think so?" said Laura. Her eyes sparkled. She was sitting on the edge of the stile, one small foot dangling. Polly's rustic sense was once more vaguely struck by the strange mingling in the little figure of an extreme, an exquisite delicacy with some tough, incalculable element. Miss Fountain's soft lightness seemed to offer no more resistance than a daffodil on its stalk. But approach her!--whether it was poor Hubert, or even----?