her, "Those eyes of yours"? Were not these ample foundations for the
happiness of thirty or forty years of marriage?

Percival, meanwhile, wanted to be kind to the childish, half-tamed Lottie,
who had attracted his notice in the fields and trusted him with her
generous message to Robin Wingfield. The girl fancied herself immensely
improved by her white dress, but had Thorne been a painter he would have
sketched her as a pale vision of Liberty, with loosely-knotted hair and
dark eyes glowing under Robin's red cap. He was able coolly to determine
the precise nature of his pleasure in her society, but he knew that it was
a pleasure. And Lottie, when she fell asleep that night, clasped a card
which was rendered priceless by the frequent recurrence of his initials.

Her passion transformed her. Her vehement spirit remained, but everything
else was changed. Her old dreams and longings were cast out by the new. She
laughed with Mrs. Blake and Addie, but under the laughter she hid her love,
and cherished it in fierce and solitary silence. Yet even to herself the
transformation seemed so wonderful that she could hardly believe in it, and
acted the rough girl now and then with the idea that otherwise they _must_
think her a consummate actress morning, noon and night. For some months no
great event marked the record of her unsuspected passion. It might,
perhaps, have run its course, and died out harmlessly in due time, but for
an unlucky afternoon, about a week before her birthday, when Percival
uttered some thoughtless words which woke a tempest of doubt and fear in
Lottie's heart. She did not question his love, but she caught a glimpse of
his pride, and felt as if a gulf had opened between her and her dream of
happiness.

Percival was calling at the house on the eventful day which was destined to
influence Lottie's fate and his own. He was in a happy mood, well pleased