"Not in the least. Let me make your mind easy. I am here but for a
day or two: we are not likely ever to meet again; but, before I go, I
should be glad if I could do you some little service." As he spoke he
had paused from his work, and, leaning on his rake, fixed his eyes,
for the first time attentively, on the fair haymaker.

Yes, she was decidedly pretty,--pretty to a rare degree: luxuriant
brown hair neatly tied up, under a straw hat doubtless of her own
plaiting; for, as a general rule, nothing more educates the village
maid for the destinies of flirt than the accomplishment of
straw-plaiting. She had large, soft blue eyes, delicate small
features, and a complexion more clear in its healthful bloom than
rural beauties generally retain against the influences of wind and
sun. She smiled and slightly coloured as he gazed on her, and,
lifting her eyes, gave him one gentle, trustful glance, which might
have bewitched a philosopher and deceived a /roue/. And yet Kenelm by
that intuitive knowledge of character which is often truthfulest where
it is least disturbed by the doubts and cavils of acquired knowledge,
felt at once that in that girl's mind coquetry, perhaps unconscious,
was conjoined with an innocence of anything worse than coquetry as
complete as a child's. He bowed his head, in withdrawing his gaze,
and took her into his heart as tenderly as if she had been a child
appealing to it for protection.

"Certainly," he said inly, "certainly I must lick Tom Bowles; yet
stay, perhaps after all she likes him."

"But," he continued aloud, "you do not see how I can be of any service
to you. Before I explain, let me ask which of the men in the field is