"There will be no spells here," she said, laughingly, as she turned aside; and, parting the bushes, climbed down amongst the ferny stones to where the water dropped into a natural basin, from which, with a cup improvised with a broad burdock leaf, she sipped the pure sparkling fluid and quenched her thirst, seating herself afterwards to rest upon one of the mossy stones, and gazing dreamily down the ravine, through which the water flowed beneath a canopy of luxuriant ferns. As she gazed, a kingfisher, till then motionless upon a twig, suddenly darted down into a pool, rose with something silvery in its beak, and fled along the narrow valley like a streak of azure drawn across the verdure by a spirit-hand, while soon after the white coverts of a blue bar-winged jay were seen as the shy bird peered at her with corvine curiosity and then uttered an excited "Tchah--tchah!" and fled. Mace thought not of kingfisher, jay, or the velvet-coated blackbird that came and perched so near to watch her intently, for she was considering whether Sir Mark would come back, and, if so, whether he would renew his suit. She was troubled, too, about her father, and his want of faith in Gil. It had seemed as if in his heart he did not dislike the attentions paid to her by Sir Mark; and at last, with a sigh, she rose and continued her little journey. "Time smooths away a good many difficulties," she said, half-laughing; "and, if it does not, I must fain follow the example of the Virgin Queen." To her surprise, before she was out of the wood she met her father, who rarely left the precincts of his own grounds, unless it was to visit ironstone pit, quarry, or the colliers busy charcoal-burning. He seemed to be examining her curiously as she came up to him, and laid her hand upon his arm. "Where have you been, Tit?" he asked. "To take Mother Goodhugh a chicken and a few little niceties, poor soul!" "For cursing thy father so bitterly?" "Nay, father; to try and make the poor half-crazed soul more sensible." "And to pay her for muttering nonsense to please a silly girl. Tit, I thought better of thee," he said. Mace looked at him half-wounded, half-amused. "When did you know me guilty of such follies, father?" she asked. "Never till now, when thy head was filled with love-nonsense by that scoundrel, Gil." "Father, you hurt me when you speak thus of Gil," she cried sadly; "and when you doubt my truth." "Thou hast been to Mother Goodhugh, like some silly wench, to ask her for love-charms; worse still, thou hast, the moment Sir Mark has gone, run off to keep tryst with a man I forbid thee to see." The pained look grew deeper in Mace's eyes as she laid both her hands upon the broad chest of the founder, and gazed full in his eyes. "Father, dear," she said, simply, "why should I go to bid a foolish old woman mutter silly spells, when I know that Gil loves me with all his heart."