too many of 'these things,'" she said--"Isn't that so? Don't
frown, Robin! Look at the Sieur Amadis! How peacefully he sleeps!
He knew all about love!"

"Of course he did!" retorted Robin--"He was a perfectly sensible
man--he married and had six children."

Innocent nodded again, and a little smile made two fascinating
dimples in her soft cheeks.

"Yes! But he said good-bye to love first!"

He looked at her in visible annoyance.

"How can you tell?--what do you know about it?" he demanded.

She lifted her eyes to the glimpses of blue sky that showed in
deep clear purity between the over-arching boughs,--a shaft of
sunlight struck on her fair hair and illumined its pale brown to
gold, so that for a moment she looked like the picture of a young
rapt saint, lost in heavenly musing.

Then a smile, wonderfully sweet and provocative, parted her lips,
and she beckoned him to a grassy slope beneath one of the oldest
trees, where little tufts of wild thyme grew thickly, filling the
air with fragrance.

"Come and sit beside me here," she said--"We have the day to
ourselves--Dad said so,--and we can talk as long as we like. You
ask me what I know?--not much indeed! But I'll tell you what the