On the fourth day, so restless is human nature, he began to weary of dell, of gipsies, of his own company, even of the book of books. A spirit of wandering seized on him fiercely, and this nostalgia of the road made him think seriously of once more putting Simon between the shafts of his caravan. There was nothing to see in the slatternly village, and comparatively little to interest him on the moors. Had he brought a gun, he might have sought relief in shooting rabbits, of which there were plenty about. But having no gun, he simply idled on the heath and set Peter after the bunnies, a task to which the terrier was by no means averse. But never by any chance did Peter catch a rabbit. It was during one of these excursions that he fell in again with Meg Merle. Looking down on Farbis Vale, and wondering how its people managed to support such isolation, he saw a rabbit scuttle past his feet. The next moment there was a sharp report, and it rolled over with a piteous squeal. Startled by the danger of the shot, and congratulating himself that Peter was safe, Dan turned round sharply to remonstrate with the reckless sportsman. The next moment, with cap in hand, he was bowing before Diana of Farbis. Evidently she had just returned from a shooting excursion, for two dead rabbits hung at her girdle, and she advanced to pick up the third. In a short dress of rough serge, a cap of the same material, gaiters and boots, she presented a somewhat uncommon appearance--rather masculine, to speak the truth, but on the whole not unpleasing. Dan thought of Di Vernon, of Atalanta, of the Lady of the Lake, and mythical Artemis, but in his heart acknowledged that none could have been so fair as she whom he beheld. She was in the spring of womanhood, a very Hebe for girlish grace, a very type of incarnate purity. Her face was one of those provoking countenances winch baffle description. Can one hope, by stringing together items of grey eyes, red lips, rosy cheek, or pearly teeth, to describe the looks of a fair woman? As soon expect poetry in an auctioneer's catalogue. The soul looking out of the clear eyes, the piquant expression of the curved lip, the ineffable charm of virginal purity,--who can hope to analyze such things? Not Dan, for one. Without attempting to reduce the component parts of this loveliness to dry facts, he simply stared spellbound at this fresh girlhood. Rosy as the dawn, full of life as a young roe, instinct with vitality and grace, she was like some beautiful wild creature of the woods. One such as the Greeks feigned haunted springs as nymphs, and boles of trees as dryads. Their eyes met as he took off his cap, in homage at once to beauty and purity and womanhood. Her looks charmed his eye and struck hard at his heart, as to capture it in one dash. She spoke first, and turned the dream to reality. "What do 'ee want messing about this yer plaace?" said the dream-maiden with the broadest accent. "It be 'mazing theng aw didn't shoot 'ee."