'My dear one,' said he, 'why are you so down-hearted? I love no one in the world but you, never have loved another, not even with a boy's fancy, and never can love any one else.' 'It is sweet to me to hear this, Jack; it is like the singing of larks in early spring, and yet it troubles my heart. A thick fog is about me. I can see no way.' 'But I have your hand, and can lead you.' 'We can never go hand in hand together.' 'Why not? I want no other companion. I will have no other; and if you can put up with such an one as I――――' 'I!――oh, how I would it could be so! But it cannot be. Indeed, indeed, believe me, it cannot be.' 'Why not?' She was unable to answer him, at least openly. She could not tell him her reason. As for Jack, if, in the morning a suspicion had traversed his mind that he really had been robbed by Mrs. Marley, and that Winefred was aware of it, in his overwhelming happiness at knowing that he was beloved, he had forgotten this wholly. 'I am hanged if I see any just cause or impediment, dear Winnie. I am not rich; indeed that is my disadvantage. Otherwise I venture to think I am not an undesirable party.' He laughed good-naturedly. 'I have robust health, strong arms, as you saw this morning; commonplace wits, and a very firm, dogged resolution that I will have you and no one else. I am earning something already; I get on famously with Captain Ford, Mrs. Jose's brother, and see no reason why I should not in a little while be sufficiently comfortably off to keep two――with moderate requirements.' 'Consider my mother, Jack.' 'She wishes to make a lady of you, and will not give consent. But, Winnie, what if you plant your feet, put up your lip and say that you are disinclined to be made into manufactured goods? Any man can take a horse to water, but ten cannot make him drink.' He was in jubilant spirits. 'Winnie,' said he, 'a caravan came to Colyton last summer with wild beasts. They went in procession through the town; there was a zebra, striped like a tiger. But a thunder shower came on just as the procession moved, and after it all the stripes had been washed from the beast, and out of the rain stepped a plain Neddy. I object to painted donkeys.' Winefred laughed――she could not help it. She said, 'You are very uncivil, Jack.' 'I don't care whether it be a donkey or a gazelle, let us have the real thing――――' 'Jack, I am altogether with you. Let us have the real thing.' 'That is a kiss,' said he. 'No sham there.' Jack was in excellent spirits. He could see no cloud in the sky. Winefred's love for him had broken like dawn upon his soul, and within him all was light, and twitter, and bloom. 'I must go back to Bath,' she said. 'What――to have the stripes painted on?' 'There are the choughs.' 'I will take them.' 'No――my father is there.' Jack became grave. 'You fear that he will not give consent?' 'I know that he will not, any more than will my mother.'