moving on the courtyard of the grass. At night in the galleries of the stars she heard their singing; and often, looking through the empty windows over the flats to which the great west wall dropped down, she saw them ride in cavalcade out of the sunset, from battle or hunt or tourney. But the peasants, who did not know what she saw and heard, preferred their snug squalor to this shivering nobility, and despised the girl who, in a fallen fortress, defended her life from theirs. At first she had kept her distance with a kind of graciousness, but one day in her sixteenth year a certain boor met her under the castle wall as she was returning with sticks for kindling, and was struck by her free and noble carriage; for though she was little more than a child, through all her rags she shone with the grace and splendor not only of her race, but of the wild life she lived on the hills when she was not in her ruins. She was as strong and fine as a young hind, and could run like any deer upon the Downs, and climb like any squirrel. And the dull-sighted peasant, seeing as though for the first time her untamed beauty, on an impulse offered to kiss her and make her his woman. Rosalind stared at him like one aroused from sleep with a rude blow. The color flamed in her cheek. "YOU to accost so one of my blood?" she cried. "Mongrel, go back to your kennel!" The lout gaped between rage and mortification, and, muttering, made a step towards her; but suddenly seeming to think better of it, stumbled away. Then Rosalind, lifting her glowing face, as beautiful as sunset with its double flush, rose under gold, saw Harding the Red Hunter gazing at her. Some business had brought him over the ferry, and on his road he had lit upon the suit and its rejection. Rosalind, her spirit chafed with what had passed, returned his gaze haughtily. But he maintained his steadfast look as though he had been hewn out of stone; and presently, impatient and disdainful, she turned away. Then, and instantly, Harding pursued his way in silence. And Rosalind grew somehow aware that he had determined to stand at gaze until her eyes were lowered. Thereupon she classed his presumption with that of the other who had dared address her, and hated him for taking part against her. Near as their dwellings were, divided only by the river and a breadth of water-meadow, their intercourse had always been of the slightest, for Harding possessed a reserve as great as her own. But from this hour their intercourse ceased entirely. The boor mis-spread the tale of her overweening pride through the hamlet, and when next she appeared there she was greeted with derision. "This is she that holds herself unfit to mate with an honest man!" cried some. And others, "Nay, do but see the silken gown of the great lady Rosalind, see the fine jewels of her!" "She thinks she outshines the Queen of Bramber's self!" scoffed a woman. And a man demanded, "What blood's good enough to mix with hers, if ours be not?"