narrow artificial brooks for conducting the water over the grass.
His course was something of a zigzag from the necessity of finding
points in these carriers convenient for jumping. Thus peering and
leaping and winding, he drew near the Exe, the central river of the
miles-long mead.

A moving spot became visible to him in the direction of his scrutiny,
mixed up with the rays of the same river. The spot got nearer, and
revealed itself to be a slight thing of pink cotton and shepherd's
plaid, which pursued a path on the brink of the stream. The young
man so shaped his trackless course as to impinge on the path a little
ahead of this coloured form, and when he drew near her he smiled and
reddened. The girl smiled back to him; but her smile had not the
life in it that the young man's had shown.

'My dear Margery--here I am!' he said gladly in an undertone, as with
a last leap he crossed the last intervening carrier, and stood at her
side.

'You've come all the way from the kiln, on purpose to meet me, and
you shouldn't have done it,' she reproachfully returned.

'We finished there at four, so it was no trouble; and if it had been-
-why, I should ha' come.'

A small sigh was the response.

'What, you are not even so glad to see me as you would be to see your
dog or cat?' he continued. 'Come, Mis'ess Margery, this is rather
hard. But, by George, how tired you dew look! Why, if you'd been up