So began the idyll of a boy and girl. Their preliminary fencing with one another had been all a make-believe: they had been born to meet, and Fate had no real equivocations for them. Frank, affectionate, and without self-consciousness, the tie between them naturally formed itself into an innocent love-knot, and through it was transmitted a mutual confidence which asked no account of whys and wherefores. The very next day, at the same hour, Brion returned to the glen, and climbed the hill to the hidden bower. Somehow he believed that he would find his lady ensconced there: and there he found her. She essayed only a brief pretence of surprise--and she was looking prettier than ever. He admired all the points in her which a man would have admired; but with better than a man’s eyes. The pink and white, the little tapering fingers and shapely arms, the cup of her throat, the soft provocation of her lips and rounded chin--they moved him not to the beatitude of passion but of reverence. If he had coveted to kiss anything of her, it would have been, holily and fearfully, her cheek. ‘You again?’ she said. She was seated exactly in her former posture. ‘Did you not expect me?’ asked Brion. ‘Think you I should have come here, an I had?’ ‘I hope so: I believe so.’ ‘_You believe!_’ In the face of her professed astonishment he saw the dimples flicker, and felt safe. ‘I am coming up,’ he said. ‘Prithee make room for me, Joan.’ She opened her eyes. ‘No room for insolence’--she shifted ever so little--‘and when I cannot retort upon it.’ ‘You do not know my name? It is Brion. Will you speak it, that I may learn to love its sound?’ He sat by her side, leaning upon his hand. ‘I have not your effrontery. Brion--there!’ ‘Joan, I am your true knight for evermore. Shall we be sweet friends?’ ‘I trow you have enough without me.’ ‘Nay, I am a lonely boy, and not very happy.’ She glanced quickly at him, and down. A flush had come to her cheek. ‘Nor I, Brion,’ she said low. Here was revelation. The heiress, presumably spoilt, of all that wealth, and unhappy! ‘Why----’ he began; but she turned suddenly and put a finger on his lips. ‘If we are to be friends, do not ask me. Let this be something apart from the rest--our own, with none other to share in and mar it. Will you?’ ‘Will I?’ His tone was assurance enough. She gave a little sigh; and looked whimsically and tenderly at him. He dared to steal her hand to his; and so they sat. ‘We ought not, mayhap,’ said she: ‘but indeed I ache for a friend; and your gentle looks assure me, though your actions may sometimes belie them.’ ‘You mean that day? What brought you to the haunted copse, Joan?’ ‘Is it really haunted, then? I wanted to see the well.’ ‘You were on the wrong side of the wall for that.’ She thrilled, moving a thought closer to him. ‘Tell me about it. I have heard a tale.’ He told her all he knew, including a shuddering description of his own visit to the well-house.