Barbara, dressed as Lady Frances' woman had described, was on her knees before a slight, sallow youth, who held an unsheathed dagger in one hand, and spoke in a language that was a mixture of some foreign tongue and most imperfect English. Barbara, pale and trembling, evidently did not understand a word the other said, yet knelt with hands and face upturned, while the boy brandished the weapon, as if in the act of striking. As his dark eye flashed upon his victim, it caught sight of the Ranger, who rushed from the thicket to her side. With a piercing cry, the boy sprang away into an almost impenetrable underwood, that skirted the portion of the Fairy Ring most distant from the house. Barbara no sooner saw Robin than she attempted to rise; but she was unequal to any further exertion, and sank fainting on the grass. When she recovered, she found herself in the same spot, with her head on Robin's shoulder. Her spirits were relieved by a burst of tears; and, withdrawing her head, she wept plentifully in her hands, heedless of the drops that crept through her small fingers, and fell abundantly on the white silk petticoat the waiting-maid so highly prized. Robin had always thought her beautiful, but he had never avowed it to himself so decidedly as now. Her long, luxuriant hair, no longer twisted and flattened under her Puritan cap, flowed over the simple, but, to Robin's eyes, superb dress in which she was arrayed; the drapery rather added to, than lessened, the pure and holy look which is the soul and essence of virgin loveliness; and he never felt his own worthlessness so much, as while thus contemplating Barbara at the very moment when she was a thousand times dearer to him than ever. She was the first to speak, as passing her hand over her eyes, then looking up between their long silken lashes, smiling as a young child at the danger that was past, and retaining only the remembrance of it, because it brought to her gentle and affectionate mind another proof of Robin's attachment and protecting care, she stretched out her hand, all gemmed as it was, and sobbed, even while smiling,-- "Dear, good Robin! he would have killed me. Are you quite sure he is gone? Come near me, Robin; he will not come back while you are here. I am sure he mistook me for some one else, for--" she spoke in a low tone, "I saw him once before, Robin Hays," still lower, "at the Gull's Nest Crag, only last night." "I knew the little rascal was after no good; and to pretend dumbness too!" "Dumbness!" repeated Barbara. "Did he pretend to be dumb?--and do you know him?" "I do know that he, in some degree, stole his passage over in---- But no matter; I'll clip his wings, and blunt his dagger, I warrant me; he shall play no more such pranks. To frighten _you_, my Barbara!--what could be the motive? serious injury he could not intend."