'You said you would cure my dog, and you did,' answered Richard.

'And I say now, if thou will, I will set thee and her together by
the old dial to-morrow night, and it shall be a warm and moonlit
night on purpose for ye, an ye will.'

'It were to no good purpose, mistress Rees, for we parted this
day--and that for ever, I much fear me,' said Richard with a deep
sigh, but getting some little comfort even out of a witch's
sympathy.

'Tut, tut, tut! Lovers' quarrels! Who knows not what they mean?
Crying and kissing--crying and kissing--that's what they mean. Come
now--what did thou and she quarrel about?'

The old woman, if not a witch, at least looked very like one, with
her two hands resting on the wide round ledge of her farthingale,
her head thrown back, and from under her peaked hat that pointed
away behind, her two greenish eyes peering with a half-coaxing, yet
sharp and probing gaze into those of the youth.

But how could he make a confidante of one like her? What could she
understand of such questions as had raised the wall of partition
betwixt him and Dorothy? Unwilling to offend her, however, he
hesitated to give her offer a plain refusal, and turning away in
silence, affected to have caught sight of something suspicious about
his mare's near hock.

'I see, I see!' said the old woman grimly, but not ill-naturedly,
and nodded her head, so that her hat described great arcs across the