under the olive-trees.

A minute later we heard his gun go off, and returned homeward with a
prayer.

1910.




MAGPIE OVER THE HILL

I lay often that summer on a slope of sand and coarse grass, close to the
Cornish sea, trying to catch thoughts; and I was trying very hard when I
saw them coming hand in hand.

She was dressed in blue linen, and a little cloud of honey-coloured hair;
her small face had serious eyes the colour of the chicory flowers she was
holding up to sniff at--a clean sober little maid, with a very touching
upward look of trust. Her companion was a strong, active boy of perhaps
fourteen, and he, too, was serious--his deep-set, blacklashed eyes looked
down at her with a queer protective wonder; the while he explained in a
soft voice broken up between two ages, that exact process which bees
adopt to draw honey out of flowers. Once or twice this hoarse but
charming voice became quite fervent, when she had evidently failed to
follow; it was as if he would have been impatient, only he knew he must
not, because she was a lady and younger than himself, and he loved her.

They sat down just below my nook, and began to count the petals of a
chicory flower, and slowly she nestled in to him, and he put his arm