And Barbara looked again, and looking sighed. Another figure had sped by her, down the orchard road towards the wood,--the figure of a man, pursuing the flying girl, with kindled face and fleet steps. She threw her last handful of grain to the circling doves, went into the stiff drawing-room, mechanically set straight the disordered chairs and drew down a shade where the light fell too hotly upon a breadth of carpet. She paused before a mirror and looked at her own pretty face clouded by a pain she would not explain. More than one lover had sued for her hand, earnestly and tenderly, but she had listened to no suit. No man had ever pursued her with fleet steps and sparkling eyes, no man had ever brought that expression of half-shamed happiness to her face which had made Millicent look just now like a child racing with her own shadow. In the forest Graham found her standing breathless beneath an oak-tree, whose branches had caught her gown and forced her to stay her flight. "Again under that terrible oak; but I shall not lose you this time. Say that you will not vanish in his jealous arms." "He opens them to me no longer; he offers me no refuge now." "And I stand waiting for you, and hold out my hand for yours. Not for a dance now do I ask it, but for a happy walk which shall end only with our lives. Will you put your hand in mine?" For answer a little warm palm creeps into his broad fingers; and the oak-tree sighs a blessing on the betrothal of which he is the only witness. CHAPTER IX. "And in the forest delicate clerks, unbrowned, Sleep on the fragrant brush as on down-beds. Up with the dawn, they fancied the light air That circled freshly in their forest dress Made them to boys again."