"When my father comes home," I answered, with great dignity, "I
shall tell him the truth. I shall say I am going to marry your
daughter."

The bailiff burst out laughing, and looked back again at his
ducks.

"Well, well!" we heard him say to himself. "They're only
children. There's no call, poor things, to part them yet awhile."

Mary and I had a great dislike to be called children. Properly
understood, one of us was a lady aged ten, and the other was a
gentleman aged thirteen. We left the good bailiff indignantly,
and went away together, hand in hand, to the cottage.

CHAPTER II.

TWO YOUNG HEARTS.

"HE is growing too fast," said the doctor to my mother; "and he
is getting a great deal too clever for a boy at his age. Remove
him from school, ma'am, for six months; let him run about in the
open air at home; and if you find him with a book in his hand,
take it away directly. There is my prescription."

Those words decided my fate in life.

In obedience to the doctor's advice, I was left an idle
boy--without brothers, sisters, or companions of my own age--to
roam about the grounds of our lonely country-house. The bailiff's