So the talk and the wine sped, and presently they joined the ladies. Annabel was at the piano, and Grace sat beside a peat fire, engaged with her needle. While the music ran, Peter, inspired by dinner and the fair maiden under his eyes, pulled forth a notebook and adventured an original rhyme. He was hurt at the girl's recent allusion, and now determined to reveal powers unsuspected. But the gem he designed would not polish, and Grace herself went to the piano to sing an exceedingly doleful ballad before Mr. Norcot's effort was complete. Then he handed it to her in a book, while Mrs. Malherb spoke aside to Dinah Beer, and the master, who cared little for music, perused an agricultural survey of Devon. Miss Malherb read, and her lip curled visibly. "Sweet vestal Gracie's lovely eyes have lighted Such fires within his breast that Peter's frighted; For now, behold! This man of noble mettle Doth feel his heart boil over like a kettle." Annabel still talked with her woman, and Grace, after brief cogitation, wrote a few lines under Mr. Norcot's effort, and handed it back again. He saw what she had said, and smiled-- "Though water boils apace and fire be bold, Pour one on t'other, quickly both grow cold. Therefore, good Peter, let thy heart boil over. 'Twill ease thee of thy pain; me of my lover." He tore a scrap from the bottom of the sheet, and concluded the correspondence. When Grace bade her father and his guest farewell and reached her room, she scanned Mr. Norcot's final comment, and found that it needed no reply. He had merely written-- "The epigrammatist rejoices; but the man weeps." CHAPTER VII THE WAR PRISON On the morning of her seventeenth birthday, Grace rode forth upon the new hunter, and tenderly touched 'Cæsar's' flank with a whip of dainty workmanship. Peter, on his black horse, accompanied her, and Mr. Malherb stood at the door of Fox Tor Farm and watched them depart. "A fine couple," he said to his wife. "One sees that Grace has got my skill in horsemanship now that she is properly mounted." "And he rides well, too." "So, so. Better than most young men. She's coming to my way of thinking. She laughs with him now and exchanges jests." His wife shook her head. "I misdoubt her. She's a Malherb--a jog-trot tradesman will never win her." "Have done with such nonsense!" he said sharply. "He is no more a tradesman than am I. You should have better feeling than to use the word." "She won't marry him, nevertheless," said Mrs. Malherb placidly. "Will she not? If I am her father she will." He turned and departed, while his wife, with a cloud upon her countenance, watched Mr. Norcot and Grace climb the steep side of Fox Tor and proceed to the heights above it.