Irritated at the accident, Maurice himself strode on to the Moor, and proceeded towards Fox Tor, that he might note his wife returning and reach her as quickly as possible. His way took him past a favourite haunt of his daughter's, and when he reached the broken stonework of the tor, Malherb surprised Grace in serious conversation with a young man. The girl had gone out alone to pass her summer hours with mournful thoughts. The horizon of her life was clouded now, and already sorrow in the present and cares for the future robbed her young days of their former contentment. Her heart was warm--a delicious empty chamber that awaiteth one as yet unknown. Beyond the dark grief of her brother's death, another now lurked, and Time, that should have dawdled with her in these rosy hours of youth, while yet her heart had never throbbed to one loved name, raced fast and pitiless as the east wind. Down his closing avenues, outlined immediately ahead, stood one at the horizon of her life, appeared a man as the goal and crown of her maiden race. There beamed the neat, trim, and amiable apparition of Mr. Peter Norcot. It was no precocity that forced poor Grace into thinking so much of love, while yet she knew it not; but in her esteem, love and marriage embraced the same idea, and now she marvelled mutely to find not love, but a very active aversion reigning in her mind against the wool-stapler. Her father's attitude and repeated assurances that wed with Peter she must, had thus thrown her thoughts upon the affairs of womenkind, herself not yet a woman. But love haunted her, and wonder concerning it. The chance young squire, who visited Fox Tor Farm, had been fluttered to his green heart's core could he have seen what was in Grace's mind or behind her drooping lids. With interest she regarded the better-looking amongst her father's visitors, wondered who loved them beside their mothers, speculated as to what would happen if some sudden, invisible spark flashed from their bosoms and found fuel within her own. One friend she had, and he was a boy even as she was a girl. John Lee belonged to the people, yet he revealed a different mien from them. The common speech was upon his tongue, the common clothes of earth-colour hid his shapely form; yet he had a way of speaking the one and wearing the other that set a mark of distinction upon him. This lad possessed more imagination than diligence; he knew the Moor with a different knowledge to that of Beer, or Woodman, or Leaman Cloberry. He had garnered its legends and its mysteries. He understood something of the spirit of the eternal hills; he loved Their colours and their rainbows and their clouds, And their fierce winds and desolate liberty." He could read, and owned a book or two hidden in the hay-loft where he dwelt outside his grandmother's cottage. He called the plants by their local names, and was skilled in the lore of wild things and the weather.