'Wherever I am, if I have bodily strength I will come to you.'

He pressed her hand. 'It is a solemn promise,' he replied. 'Now I
must go, for you know your way.'

'I shall hardly believe that it has not been all a dream!' she said,
with a childish instinct to cry at his withdrawal. 'There will be
nothing left of last night--nothing of my dress, nothing of my
pleasure, nothing of the place!'

'You shall remember it in this way,' said he. 'We'll cut our
initials on this tree as a memorial, so that whenever you walk this
path you will see them.'

Then with a knife he inscribed on the smooth bark of a beech tree the
letters M.T., and underneath a large X.

'What, have you no Christian name, sir?' she said.

'Yes, but I don't use it. Now, good-bye, my little friend.--What
will you do with yourself to-day, when you are gone from me?' he
lingered to ask.

'Oh--I shall go to my granny's,' she replied with some gloom; 'and
have breakfast, and dinner, and tea with her, I suppose; and in the
evening I shall go home to Silverthorn Dairy, and perhaps Jim will
come to meet me, and all will be the same as usual.'

'Who is Jim?'