I had no chance to speak to her that day, nor the next, nor indeed for many days. When my chance came, something stepped in between us. Either Wilfred was with Ruth, or my mother claimed the girl as her companion. I need not say that this maddened me more than ever and made me act in anything but a creditable way. I would leave the merry family party and go down to the village to talk with the fishermen. I would seek to forget my own sorrows by laughing at their jokes, or entering into their lives. Again, I would indulge in long, lonely walks, or go away fishing alone. I knew I was fighting against my own interests by doing this. I knew I was allowing my brother to use every fascinating art in his power. At length, my time came. We had all been out in the harvest fields together, watching the reapers cut the golden wheat and gather it into sheaves. Surely the earth has few fairer sights than this! I have travelled over a great deal of the globe, but I have seen nothing fairer than our old Trewinion fields at harvest time. Especially was this so beneath the light of the harvest moon. I shall never forget it. As twilight faded, a thin mist rose from the earth, which, as the pale moon's rays shone through it, looked strangely beautiful. The corn moughs (stacks), too, looked weird and ghastly in the dim light, while the silver sea in the distance made a low, delicious music as it gently rippled on the shore. In the distance I could hear the men and women singing on their homeward way some plaintive Cornish songs, which to me blended sweetly with the low sighing of the wind. Ruth and I had by some means became separated from the rest, and my heart fluttered rapidly, for I had determined to find out if she loved my brother Wilfred. It has never been my way to lead up slowly to a subject. What I have to say I must blurt out at once, ofttimes in a way that gives pain to those to whom I speak. "Ruth," I said, "I have long wished to tell you something." "Have you, Roger?" she said, cheerfully "then tell me at once, for you have made me curious. What can you wish to say to me?" There was no hesitation, no trembling in her voice. She spoke as naturally as my own sisters might have spoken. "Let us go home by Pentvargle Cove," I said, "and turn in at Honeysuckle-lane." "Very well," she said, gaily; "and you'll pluck some of the honeysuckle for me, won't you? I can smell it from here; how delicious it is. Wouldn't Wilfred enjoy this?" She was thinking of Wilfred even now, when she was alone with me, and I was about to burst out with an angry remark about my brother when I looked down into her face.