tween her bright red lips, while there she knelt and gazed at me; neither had I ever seen anything so beautiful as the large, dark eyes intent upon me, full of pity and wonder. Then I wandered with my hazy eyes down the black shower of her hair; and where it fell on the turf, among it, like an early star, was the first primrose of the

season.

And since that day I think of her through all the rough storms of my life when I see an early primrose. "What is your name?" she said, "and how your feet are bleeding! Oh, I must tie them up for you! And no shoes nor stockings! Is your mother very poor, poor boy?"

"No," I said, being vexed at this; "we are rich enough to buy all this great meadow if we chose; and here are my shoes and stockings."

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Why they are quite as wet as your feet. Please to let me manage them; I will do it very softly."

"Oh, I don't think much of that," I replied. "But how you are looking at me! I never saw any one like you before. My name is John Ridd. What is your name ?" "Lorna Doone," she answered in a low voice, as if afraid of it, and hanging her head so that I could see only her forehead and eyelashes; "if you please my name is Lorna Doone; and I thought you must have known it." Then I stood up and touched her hand and tried to make her look at me; but she only turned away and her blushes turned into tears and her tears to long, low sobs.

"Don't cry," I said, "whatever you do. I am sure you have never done any harm. I will give you all my fish, Lorna, and catch some more for mother; only don't be angry with me." Here was I, a yeoman's boy, a yeoman

every inch of me; and there was she, a lady born, and dressed by people of rank and taste, who took pride in her beauty. Though some of her frock was touched with wet, her dress was pretty enough for the queen of all the angels! All from her waist to her neck was white, and the dark, soft weeping of her hair and the shadowy light of her eyes, like a wood rayed through with sunset, made it seem yet whiter.

Seeing how I heeded her, she turned to the stream in a bashful manner, and began to watch the water. I, for my part, being vexed at her behavior to me, took up all my things and made fuss about it to let her know I was going. But she did not call me back as I had made sure she would do; moreover, I knew that to try the descent was almost certain death to me, so at the mouth I came back to her and said:

"Lorna."

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Oh, I thought you were gone,” she answered; "why did you ever come here? Do you know what the robber band would do to us if they found you here with me? They would kill us both outright and bury us here by the water."

"But why should they kill me?"

"Because you have found the way up here, and they never could believe it. Now, please go; oh, please go! They will kill us both in a moment."

"But I tell you, Lorna, I never saw any one like you, and I must come back again to-morrow, and so must you; and I will bring you such lots of things there are apples, and a thrush I caught with only one leg broken, and only put your hand in mine what little things

they are, Lorna,- and I will bring you the loveliest dog; I will show you just how long he is."

"Hush!"

A shout came down the valley; and all my heart was trembling like water after sunset, and Lorna's face was altered from pleasant play to terror. She looked up at me with such a power of weakness that I at once made up my mind to save her or die with her. A tingle went through all my bones, and I only longed for my carbine. The little girl took courage from me, and put her cheek quite close to mine.

"Come with me down the waterfall.

easily; and mother will take care of you.”

I can carry you

"No, no," she cried as I took her up; "I will tell you what to do. They are only looking for me. You see that hole, that hole there?" She pointed to a little niche in the rock which verged the meadow about fifty yards away from us. In the fading of the twilight I could just

descry it.

"Yes, I see it; but they will see me crossing the grass to get there."

"Look!

Look! " She could hardly speak. "There
Oh, here they come; I

is a way out from the top of it.
can see them."

The little maid turned as white as the snow which hung on the rocks above her, and then she began to sob aloud, but I drew her behind the withy bushes and close down to the water. Here they could not see either of us from the upper valley, and might have sought a long time for us.

Crouching in that hollow nest, I saw a dozen fierce men

come down on the other side of the water, not bearing any firearms, but looking lax and jovial, as if they were come from riding.

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Queen! Queen!" they were shouting here and there and now and then. "Where is our little queen gone ?

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They always call me 'queen,' and I am to be queen by and by," Lorna whispered to me, with her little heart beating against me; "oh, they are crossing by the timber there, and then they are sure to see us.'

"Stop," said I; "now I see what to do. I must get into the water, and you must go to sleep."

"To be sure, yes, away in the meadow there. But how bitter cold it will be for you!"

"Now mind you never come again," she whispered over her shoulder as she crept away. "Only I shall come sometimes."

I crept into the water and lay down with my head between two blocks of stone. The dusk was deepening between the hills, and a white mist lay on the river. I could see every ripple and twig and glazing of twilight above it as bright as in a picture; so that to my ignorance there seemed no chance at all but what the men must find me. For all this time they were shouting and making such a hullabaloo that all the rocks round the valley rang.

I was now desperate between fear and wretchedness, till I caught a glimpse of the little maid whose beauty and whose kindliness had made me yearn to be with her. And then I knew that for her sake I was bound to be brave and hide myself. She was lying beneath a rock, feigning to be fast asleep.

Presently one of the great rough men came round a corner upon her, and there he stopped and gazed a while at her fairness and her innocence. Then he caught her in his arms and kissed her.

up

"Here our queen is! Here's the queen; here's the captain's daughter!" he shouted to his comrades; "fast asleep! Now I have first claim to her, and no one else shall touch the child. Back, all of you!"

He set her dainty little form upon his great, square shoulder and her narrow feet in one broad hand; and so in triumph marched away, with the purple velvet of her skirt ruffling in his long black beard and the silken length of her hair fetched out, like a cloud by the wind, behind her.

Going up that darkened glen, little Lorna turned and put up a hand to me, and I put up a hand to her in the thick of the mist and the willows. She was gone, my little dear, and when I got over my fright, I longed to have more to say to her. Her voice to me was like a sweet, silver bell intoned to the small chords of a harp.

I crept into a bush for warmth and rubbed my shivering legs. Then, as daylight sunk below the forget-me-not of stars, I knew that now must be my time to get away.

MEMORY GEMS

THO

HOUGH the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;

Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all. LONGFELLOW.