“I don’t think anyone could resist her. Even her foster-father was obliged to consent to this plan when she asked him, though he wanted to put a stop to our engagement at once and get me packed off here for good. I must say the man behaved uncommonly well, though, about it, and acted with the feelings of a gentleman, though he is only a peasant. He said he knew it would be exceedingly disagreeable to me to have to discuss the subject of my marriage with a poor man like him, so he went to Mr. Leslie and put the matter in his hands, asking him to speak to me, and so the very day after I was engaged to Fairy I had a letter from Leslie, asking me to call on him the next morning. I went, little dreaming what he wanted to see me about, and there I was closeted with him the whole morning, and a nice state of mind I was in when I heard I was never to see my Fairy again unless my father consented to our marriage. However, Leslie I soon found, though at first he was on stilts, was on my side, and we arranged the little conspiracy I have just told you, for he thinks with me if my father can only see her apart from her foster-parents, he will be so favourably impressed with her that he will eventually give his consent. But Leslie would only promise to help me on condition I left England at once; he would not even agree to my seeing Fairy again, though he promised to go and tell her at once what we had planned, and he consented to my writing to her once a week. “I went back to Oafham, intending to return home at the end of the week without seeing Fairy again, though I did not know how to keep away from her. But, to my joy, Mr. Leslie walked over the next morning, and told me I might go that afternoon and say good-bye, for Fairy had spent the whole of the previous day in crying and saying, ‘I want my Rex,’ ‘I will have my Rex,’ ‘I don’t care what John says, I will have my Rex;’ so when the shepherd came home that evening he went to Leslie at once, before he had his supper, and said he could not bear to see his little sunbeam in tears, and I might go and bid her good-bye. So I went, and found her as bright as ever, and Mrs. Shelley laughing at her and saying she wished everyone’s sorrows were as shortlived as Fairy’s, who cried for her lover for a whole day, as if she were crying for a doll, like the child she was; and then the shepherd, who had always spoilt her, sent for me, and gave his wife a good scolding for letting me go to the house in the first instance. But I shall tire you out with my tales of Fairy. I could talk of her all day long and all night, too,” said Rex. “Well, you must stop and dine with us. Arnaud will be glad to see you again. You won’t tell him about it, I suppose?” “No, certainly not. Please don’t tell him a word, will you? My mother would not like it if she knew I had told you; but, you see, it would never do for me to tell my people under present circumstances.”