In a garden attached to a cottage situated twenty miles from Springfield stands Nelly Marston, by the side of an old apple-tree loaded with fair fruit, and looking, with the white moss gathered about its limbs, like an ancient knight clothed in silver armour. The cottage has many rooms of delightfully odd shapes, is tastefully furnished, and is built in the centre of an acre of land so prettily laid out and so bright with colour that few strangers see it without pausing a while to admire. Nelly Marston is more beautiful than when we saw her last at Springfield, and to the poetical mind presents a fine contrast to the gnarled and ancient tree, which, could it speak, might honestly say, "Old I am, but am yet fair to the eye and can produce good things. Come, my girl, gather sweetness from me, and wisdom too, if you need it." She gathers sweetness and that is enough for her. From where she stands, she has a broken view of the winding lane which, from distant wider spaces, leads to the front of the cottage. Often and again her eyes are directed towards this lane, with a look which denotes that her heart is in them. She is like fair Rosamond waiting for her prince. He comes! A horseman turns into the winding path and waves his hand to her. She replies with the gladdest of smiles and with a waving of her own pretty hand, and her heart beats joyfully to the music of the horse's hoof. Her prince draws rein at the cottage-door, and she is there to meet him. A lad with face deeply pock-marked takes the horse to the stable, casting as many admiring glances towards Nelly as time will permit of. "Now, Nelly," says the prince gaily, as he throws his arms about her and kisses her again and again, "was ever lover more punctual than I?" "How can I tell?" she answers, "I never had but one." "Ah, Nelly, Nelly!" he exclaims, with uplifted finger and an arch smile; "do you forget the gardener's son?" "No, I do not forget him; he was very good to me. But I do not mean in that way." "In what way, then, puss?" "You'll tease me till I tell you. I don't know how to say it." "Say it you must, though, my queen." "Of course I must. You have got what you call a strong will. Isn't that it?" "That is it," he assents, with a nod which is both careless and determined. "And are never to be turned from your purpose?" "Never. That is the only way to get on in life, and I mean to get on." "Nothing can prevent that. You are so clever that I am half inclined to be frightened of you. And I should be, if I were not sure you loved me." He kisses her as he observes, "Put the strongest will into the crucible of love, and it melts like lead in a furnace. In such a test steel would become as pliant as running water. Love is the most intoxicating poison, my darling." "I don't like the word," she says. "The word 'darling'?" he inquires.