"Save perhaps that a kiss one may deem valueless and but a jest may be full of tender significance to another." "You look quite _distraite_, Winny, dear, as you make this romantic admission," said one of her friends. "Do I--or did I?" she asked, colouring. "Yes. Of what or of _whom_ were you thinking?" "Such a deuced odd theme you have all got upon!" said Sir Watkins, perceiving how Winifred's colour had deepened at her own thoughts. "But how funny--how delightful!" exclaimed the girls, laughing together; while Dora added, with something like a mock sigh, as she held up a crape rose, "When last I wore this rose in my hair, I danced with little Mr. Clavell--and he is spending his Christmas before Sebastopol! Poor dear fellow--poor Tom Clavell!" Winifred's colour faded away, her usual calm and self-possessed look returned; and, stooping down, she bent all her energies to weave an obstinate spray of ivy round the carved base of a pillar, some yards distant from the group. "Permit me to be your assistant, Miss Lloyd," said the baronet, in a low voice and with an earnest manner. "Miss Dora must excuse me; but I don't see the fun of craning my neck up there from the top of a twelve-foot ladder." Winifred started a little impatiently, for as he stooped by her side, his long fair whiskers brushed her brow. "Do I annoy you?" he asked, gently. "O no; but I feel nervous to-night, and wish our task were ended." "It soon will be, if we work together thus. But you promised to tell me, Miss Lloyd, why your old gamekeeper would not permit me to shoot that hare in the Martens' dingle, to-day." "Need I tell you, Sir Watkins--a Welshman?" "You forget that my place is in South Wales, almost on the borders of Monmouthshire, and this may be a local superstition." "It is." "Well, I am all attention," said he, looking softly down on the girl's wonderfully thick and beautiful eyelashes. "The story, as I heard it once from dear mamma, runs thus: Ages ago, there took shelter in our forests at Pennant Melangell, the daughter of a Celtic king, called St. Monacella, to whom a noble had proposed marriage; one whom she could not love, and could never love, but on whom her father was resolved to bestow her." "By Jove!" commented Sir Watkins, while poor Winifred, feeling the awkwardness of saying all this to a man she had rejected, became troubled and coloured deeply; "and so, to escape her tormentors, she fled to the wilderness."