My father, then proposing that they should take the air a little, since the sun continued bravely to shine, remarked, as he laid this sword upon his chair by the hearth, that his companion had but an empty scabbard dangling at his sword-belt. To Sir Michael's civil offer of his own good weapon to replace that so unhappily lost, Ned replied that he thanked him, but would make shift for a while with the scabbard, having a mind to fill it again with the only blade that fitted it, if haply it might be done. And as he spoke his face was suffused with a flush of deep crimson; the only blush, my father said, that he had ever seen on the lad's goodly countenance. And so they walked a turn in the park, amongst the trees and the deer, Sir Michael supported, until a pleasant bench was reached, by an arm that is, I have found, very good and comfortable to lean upon; where I, having from my lady's window seen them pass, made shift after a little to join them. Ned rose to meet me, and I was glad to see the shadow driven from his face by the smile of his welcome. "My lady is very instant and pressing that you should go to her," I said, as I seized in both mine the hand he stretched to me. "What, what!" says my father merrily. "Was all this bird-like haste of swooping down upon us but to drive the man again from your side? 'T is early days, little Phil--early days!" "Indeed, sir," I replied, panting a little yet for the speed I had used, "I would not have the man leave me, and so ran to husband the minutes with him. Nor I would not have him go to Madam Royston, who will, without doubt, very quickly draw from him our morning's doings." "And wherefore should she not know them?" said Ned, smiling gently on me the while he still clung to my hand, as finding comfort in the touch of it. "Because," said I, "we have trouble enough, and she will surely make more when she knows. 'T is now three years past that she told me I must look for no such greatness as to be your--" and there my boldness had an end. "Is it indeed as you say?" cried poor Ned; and his eyes went in question from mine to Sir Michael's. And then that little devil of mischief was in me again. "I vow 't is very true," I said. "Nor I do not quarrel at that. But in this same matter she had a promise of me, that--that----" "What promise was it?" he asked, in some distress. "I do hope it was nothing foolish, nor hard to keep." "I had almost forgot it," I answered, lingering over my words, "but now I do perceive I have to the letter kept it. Yet indeed, dear Ned, it was for some hours hard to observe that pledge, for I did promise her that I would wait until I was asked." And, if my jest was of more boldness than wit, the laughter that greeted it, being compounded of love, merriment, and confidence, lacked nothing of the finest quality.