When the stable boys had taken our horses, I gave my hand to Sir John,
after which we entered the inn and treated each other as strangers.

Soon after I had washed the stains of travel from my hands and face, I
sent the maid to my cousins, asking that I might be permitted to pay my
devotions, and Dorothy came to the tap-room in response to my message.

When she entered she ran to me with outstretched hands and a gleam of
welcome in her eyes. We had been rare friends when she was a child.

"Ah, Cousin Malcolm, what a fine surprise you have given us!" she
exclaimed, clasping both my hands and offering me her cheek to kiss.
"Father's delight will be beyond measure when he sees you."

"As mine now is," I responded, gazing at her from head to foot and
drinking in her beauty with my eyes. "Doll! Doll! What a splendid girl you
have become. Who would have thought that--that--" I hesitated, realizing
that I was rapidly getting myself into trouble.

"Say it. Say it, cousin! I know what is in your mind. Rusty red hair,
angular shoulders, sharp elbows, freckles thickly set as stars upon a
clear night, and so large and brown that they fairly twinkled. Great
staring green eyes. Awkward!--" And she threw up her hands in mimic horror
at the remembrance. "No one could have supposed that such a girl would
have become--that is, you know," she continued confusedly, "could have
changed. I haven't a freckle now," and she lifted her face that I might
prove the truth of her words by examination, and perhaps that I might also
observe her beauty.

Neither did I waste the opportunity. I dwelt longingly upon the wondrous