"What I know not myself. Some office, my lady speaks of, I am to fit myself for." "Ah! my son," continued his mother, "I do hope you'll not forget the country as well as Mercy Page. Life is wild in London, they say. Think of the poor squire." "Think of my winsome Margaret," Maud exclaimed fiercely. "Think of her that the squire murdered! Wild! Na, na; he'll see the light." Cicely was the only one of the family exempt from that hatred of the Trevethlans, which darkened the hue of the old woman's otherwise harmless enthusiasm, and burnt sullenly in her grandson. She had not long said her parting words, when Michael threw on his hat, shook himself free from the detaining grasp of old Maud, and walked briskly away in the direction of Trevethlan. About a mile from the castle, a rugged strip of waste land skirted the edge of the cliff over the beach, and supported a number of aged thorns, stunted and bent by the sea-breezes. It was to this spot that Michael turned his steps. The landscape was growing gray when he reached it, but there was yet sufficient light to discover the object he sought. A few strides placed him by the side of a young girl. "Mercy," he said, in a low voice, "the first at a tryst! It is something new." "The days are short," replied the girl, with affected indifference: "I should not have waited. Besides, you are going away, so one does not care." "Is that your farewell, Mercy?" Michael asked. "And why not?" she said, tossing her head. "You are a fine gentleman: going to London: to forget Mercy Page." "Yes," answered Michael--his companion started at the word--"to forget the Mercy of to-night, but to remember another--the Mercy of old days; to forget her conceited and wilful, to remember her kind and winsome. You would not wish me remember the first--would you, Mercy?" The maiden said nothing in reply; and Sinson, encouraged by her silence, drew her with gentle force to a seat on a bank of turf. "Do you smell the wild thyme, Mercy?" he continued. "They call it a figure of love, rewarding with sweetness even what bruises it. It is so I have answered all your coldness. Mind you not the St. John's Eve, when the folks had caught you in the rope? Who fought his way to your help? And then you sat by my side on this very bank under the hawthorn; and when I asked, might I woo you?--you know what you said. And have I ever failed in my suit? Did I ever court another? When you were cross, and would not dance with me, did I seek any one else? Whose colours did I wear when I threw, one after another, all the best of Penwith? Yet, from that first evening, never could I win a civil word. And now I am called far away, Mercy will give me no hope. When I come back, she will be another's." "No," said the maiden, and stopped short.