"Briar Farm can get on as best it may!" he replied, cheerily--
"I'll work on it as long as I live and hand it down to some one
worthy of it, never fear! So there, Innocent!--be happy, and don't
worry yourself! Keep to your old knight and your strange fancies
about him--you may be right in your ideas of love, or you may be
wrong; but the great point with me is that you should be happy--
and if you cannot be happy in my way, why you must just be happy
in your own!"

She looked at him with a new interest, as he stood upright, facing
her in all the vigour and beauty of his young manhood. A little
smile crept round the corners of her mouth.

"You are really a very handsome boy!" she said--"Quite a picture
in your way! Some girl will be very proud of you!"

He gave a movement of impatience.

"I must go back to the orchard," he said--"There's plenty to do.
And after all, work's the finest thing in the world--quite as fine
as love--perhaps finer!"

A faint sense of compunction moved her at his words--she was
conscious of a lurking admiration for his cool, strong, healthy
attitude towards life and the things of life. And yet she was
resentful that he should be capable of considering anything in the
world "finer" than love. Work? What work? Pruning trees and
gathering apples? Surely there were greater ambitions than these?
She watched him thoughtfully under the fringe of her long