‘You are old for your years. What are they?’ ‘Yet I am old for them! Will you tell me your name, and I will answer?’ ‘What fashion of name likes you in a woman?’ ‘Yours.’ ‘Well, I have allowed you too long. I must go.’ ‘O! not yet!’ ‘This moment. What brought you up the hill?’ ‘I saw a donkey browsing, and hoped it might be yours.’ ‘It was my Gritty: she loves me like a dog, and bears me--like an angel. If it were not for her----’ ‘Why do you stop?’ ‘I think I should put a milestone round my neck and drown.’ Brion wondered. What tragedy spoke here--apart from the verbal accident? The young face was suddenly clouded; the voice spoke in dejection. But he had had already, in little Alse, some experience of the small tragedies of girlhood, and was not inclined to attach too much importance to their manifestations. ‘Is it like that?’ he said sympathetically. ‘Then, if one donkey can save you, two might make you happy.’ ‘Yourself?’ she said, her eyebrows lifted at him. ‘So you are a donkey for wishing to know me?’ ‘Ay, if losing me, you will promise to drown yourself.’ She looked at him, the sleepy merriment come back to her eyes; then got to her feet, and he with her. ‘That is another matter,’ she said. ‘I have heard a proverb that two proud men cannot ride one ass, and, by the token, one woman cannot ride two asses. I wish you good-even, Sir.’ ‘O! You are not going?’ ‘Indeed, yes.’ ‘You have neither forgiven me nor heard my story.’ ‘Both will keep.’ ‘Then you will let me come again--to this pretty bower?’ ‘Why not?’ ‘And meet you here?’ ‘Nay, I said not that. What was the fish you caught?’ ‘It was a grayling.’ ‘They say the stream here is full of them. Good luck to your further fishing, Sir. I must away.’ ‘At least let me put you on your Gritty.’ ‘In good earnest, no.’ She looked genuinely alarmed. ‘Why not?’ ‘Because, if you would know, the hill-top where she grazes is bare, and open to the scrutiny of eyes.’ ‘What eyes?’ ‘Some in the Chase yonder, perchance.’ ‘Holne Chase!’ Brion opened _his_ eyes in wonderment. ‘Do you come from there?’ The girl, hanging her head, gave ever so little a nod with it. ‘Mistress,’ cried Brion, at a wild venture: ‘I think Joan the sweetest name in all the world.’ She glanced at him askance: ‘Have you guessed my secret?’ and, putting her finger rosily to her lips, bade him stay where he was, and not attempt to follow her. And with that she vanished round the rock, leaving the boy standing as if stupefied. Joan, sole child and heiress of the wealthy Knight! and he, a penniless dependent on a kinsman’s bounty! What would come of it? What could? With a sigh he turned to the rock, and tracing on it in invisible characters the name Joan Medley, put his lips to it as if it were a face. CHAPTER X. CONFIDENCES