"Mad girl!" he cried in agonizing amazement; "what would you do? Give it me. Do you hear?" and he started forward to seize it. [Sidenote: Ruth's threat.] "Mind, Lawrence," she said, waving him back, "dare to lay a finger on it, and--" "What--what--?" "And I will tell all the world--that is to say, I will tell Mistress Sheppard, and that will serve just as well, of everything I heard and saw last night. Say, Lawrence," and she half held the bayonet towards him, "which way is to be?" [Sidenote: Lawrence Lee in check.] Without a word he turned from her, and strode wrathfully, and pale as a ghost, away through the copse. CHAPTER XII. MOTHER GOOSE'S TALES. Lovelier spring than this one now passing into early summer had not been within living memory. Never had the trees budded more green and fresh-looking, and the roses and larkspurs shown more hurry to break forth and mingle their fragrance with the breath of the soft sweet air; and yet Ruth Rumbold's heart felt as wintry as if some load of ice-bound earth weighed it down. Poor old Maudlin wondered sorely what ailed her pet, that she went about the place, doing her little household duties as carefully and deftly indeed as she always did do them, but not to the tune of her own sweet young voice, as her wont was. No, the child had grown silent as any stock and stone, and as grave--and that wasn't saying a little neither--as the master himself; and then Maudlin set about concocting a variety of messes and electuaries in the still-room with a view to restoring the roses to the pale cheeks, and charming back the lost music. And then, after all her trouble, to think that Ruth refused to swallow a mouthful of her medicaments, and vowed that nothing ailed her--if only Maudlin would leave her to herself! For three whole days this sort of thing has been going on; and to-night, tired out with her ineffectual expostulations, the old woman has gone off, not without dudgeon, to "get a mouthful of fresh air," as she says. And truly the atmosphere is heavy--as if a storm were not so far off--and to indulge in a little interchange of ideas in the gate-house parlour; for there you are always safe to pick up the latest news stirring, trifling and important, just as you would come upon it in the Mall or the Covent Garden coffee-houses. [Sidenote: Ruth at her studies.] And so Ruth is left to her musings; for though at the first glance you might call them studies, since one book of the little heap piled up on the broad ledge of the window where she is seated, lies open on her lap, you have but to look again, to see she is not reading it. As, however, the sound of a heavy step descending the stairs falls upon her ear, she drops her eyes to the page, not even raising them again when the maltster enters, and crossing slowly to her side, stands gazing out absently into the rays of the setting sun, which are luridly firing the yew-tree peacock into a blaze of red and yellow.