As he walked through the woods he came to a narrow creek that ran inland from the sea; and, following this toward the shore, he chanced on a sight that caused him to stop and smile with genuine light-hearted boyishness. For there, in the middle of the shallow stream, her back toward him, stood Mistress Gyll Croyden, bending low over the water. In one hand she held a forked stick which now and again she darted viciously into the muddy bed of the inlet, while with her other hand she held her skirts above the knee. “Is it possible,” called the youth, “that even a crab is so heartless as to run away? Now, were I the crab—” but her expression, as she turned, brought another peal of laughter from his lips. “Yes,” he said, “you are caught instead of the shell-fish.” At this the smile which had been rising to the surface of her eyes, whether she would or no, culminated in a laugh as merry as his own. She waded to the bank. “My patient is come to life at the wrong moment; but sit you down, pretty boy, and talk to me. Well?” she said, dangling a pair of white feet in the sluggish stream—“Well?” “What is the meaning of your expectancy?” he inquired, stretching himself at full length on the mossy ground. “You wait, I suppose, for a seemly expression of gratitude. Thank you, then,” and, taking her hand, he kissed it lazily. But she was pouting. “Oh, I am wrong. What is it, then? Ah, I see. You wait to be told of your beauty, and how the sight of a maid crabbing is beyond description. Methinks there’s another will tell thee that, and more besides. I saw the mountebank to-day ogling thee with eyes distraught and bulging.” Gyll laughed. “’Tis Roger Prat. He hath no thought o’ me. He’s all for the bear and Vytal.” “Ah, well,” said Ralph, “thou’rt not so wondrous comely. I tell thee, wench, for all thy prettiness, there’s one outshines thee as the moon a will-o’-the-wisp. Nay, look not angry. ’Tis the governor’s daughter, Mistress Dare. I’ve seen her at her window thrice this very day. My heart goes wild of love for so fair a face, so unobtainable a damsel.” At this Gyll made a wry face. “Pah! she loses her beauty quickly. When we set out from England she was fairer far than now. I saw her go aboard at Plymouth.” “Ay,” laughed Ralph, “she was younger, but her face lacked its present fire in the London days.” “What!” cried Gyll, “you saw her there?” “Nay, nay,” he returned quickly, “’tis a delusion of my addled brain.” She looked down at his incongruous beard, and then into the youthful eyes indulgently. “Poor boy!” “Poor boy!” he echoed. “You call me nothing but ‘poor boy.’” “Nay, nay, your Majesty,” she contradicted, mocking his assumed haughtiness. “When have I said such a thing before?” “Was it not when I—” But Ralph hesitated. “Oh no, perhaps not,” he added, quickly, and rambled back to the praise of her appearance. “If your Majesty will permit me,” she said, complacently, “I will pull on my stockings.”