Gerard took the paper. "'Tis a posy: and fairly enough writ." He read the lines, blushing like a girl. They were very naïve, and may be thus Englished:-- "Youth, with thee my heart is fledde, Come back to the 'golden Hedde!' Wilt not? yet this token keepe Of her whŏ d[=oe]th thy goeing weepe. Gyf the world prove harsh and cold, Come back to 'the Hedde of gold.'" "The little dove!" purred Denys. "The great owl! To go and risk her good name thus. However, thank Heaven she has played this prank with an honest lad that will ne'er expose her folly. But oh, the perverseness! Could she not bestow her nauseousness on thee?" Denys sighed and shrugged. "On thee that art as ripe for folly as herself?" Denys confessed that his young friend had harped his very thought. 'Twas passing strange to him that a damsel with eyes in her head should pass by a man, and bestow her affections on a boy. Still he could not but recognize in this the bounty of Nature. Boys were human beings after all, and, but for this occasional caprice of women, their lot would be too terrible; they would be out of the sun altogether, blighted, and never come to anything: since only the fair could make a man out of such unpromising materials as a boy. Gerard interrupted this flattering discourse to beg the warrior-philosopher's acceptance of the lady's ring. He refused it flatly, and insisted on Gerard going back to the "Tête d'Or" at once, ring and all, like a man, and not letting a poor girl hold out her arms to him in vain. "Her hands you mean." "Her hand, with the 'Tête d'Or' in it." Failing in this he was for putting the ring on his friend's finger. Gerard declined. "I wear a ring already." "What that sorry gimcrack? Why 'tis pewter, or tin at best: and this virgin gold, forbye the jewel." "Ay, but 'twas Margaret gave me this one: and I value it above rubies. I'll neither part with it nor give it a rival:" and he kissed the base metal, and bade it fear nought. "I see the owl hath sent her ring to a goose," said Denys, sorrowfully. However he prevailed on Gerard to fasten it inside his bonnet. To this indeed the lad consented very readily. For sovereign qualities were universally ascribed to certain jewels; and the amethyst ranked high among these precious talismans. When this was disposed of, Gerard earnestly requested his friend to let the matter drop, since speaking of the other sex to him made him pine so for Margaret, and almost unmanned him with the thought that each step was taking him farther from her. "I am no general lover, Denys. There is room in my heart for one sweetheart, and for one friend. I am far from my dear mistress: and my friend, a few leagues more and I must lose him too. Oh let me drink thy friendship pure while I may, and not dilute with any of these stupid females."