And yet my Lord hath many excellent qualities. He is generous to a fault, and I am sure he would spare neither time nor gold to procure for my Lady anything he thought she would like. He is brave too, and would venture his life without a thought, if even the poorest fisher lad were in danger; as he did, they tell me, in the storm last winter. I am the last one to judge him hardly, for I know my own failings in that line, and how often I have said or done in a minute of provocation what I would have given a great deal to undo again. I am sure my Lord is not malicious. He would never lay such a trap for any one as Lady Jemima did for me the other day, nor would he persevere in a course of tormenting, day after day, or take advantage of a time when one was feeling unhappy or annoyed about something else, to say the most aggravating thing he could think of. But there! I said I would never think of Felicia if I could help it. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII. _MORE THAN A FRIEND._ _September 3._ SOMETHING has happened since I wrote last, which, though it makes no seeming change in my outward circumstances, has changed my whole life, so that I seem to myself to be living in another world. Mr. Corbet hath asked me to be his wife. It chanced on this wise. I had been down to see Goody Yeo and carry her the petticoat Betty had been making for her grandchild. Betty was to have gone herself, but the day was damp, and I thought it not safe for her to go out. I would have kept the petticoat till next day, but Betty would not hear of that, so I wrapped myself in my cloak and went down to the village. It cleared up before my return, and I thought I would come back by the ravine, which is ever a favorite walk of mind, from its lonely stillness. The servants rarely use the path, from I know not what superstition of a ghost which haunts it. There is a ghost, or a dobby, or a pixy, or some such creature in every corner of the place, it seems to me. Well, as I was lingering a little by the spring, and looking into its clear depths, where the water boils up from a large and seemingly deep cleft in the rocks, I was startled by a voice, and looking up, I beheld Lord Saville. I have hated the man since the first time I ever saw him. His very look is an insult: especially when he tries to look fascinating and amiable. "So the fair Margaret is admiring her own beauty in the mirror of the spring!" said he. "Are you not afraid of exciting the jealousy of the naiad of the fountain? Nay, be not in such haste—" for I would have passed him, with only a greeting, but he stopped into the narrow path and would not let me go by. "Surely you will not be so cruel as not to vouchsafe one word to your most humble admirer!" "I understand no court compliments, my Lord!" said I, trying to speak coldly and calmly, though I was in a fever of indignation. "I am but a simple country maid. I pray you to let me pass!"