and was almost wholly innocent of any petrifying educational influences.

Joan, for her part, felt at ease. The man was so polite and so humble. He
thanked her for her information so gratefully. Moreover, he evidently cared
so little about her or her looks. She felt perfectly safe, for it was easy
to see that he thought more of the gorse than anything.

"My faither's agin such things an' sayin's," she babbled on, "but I dunnaw.
They seems truth to me, an' to many as is wiser than what I be. My mother
b'lieved in 'em, an' Joe did, till faither turned en away from 'em. But
when us plighted troth, I made en jine hands wi' me under a livin' spring
o' water, though he said 'twas heathenish. Awnly, somehow, I knawed 'twas a
proper thing to do."

"I should like to hear more about these old customs some day," he said, as
though Joan and he were to meet often in the future, "and I should be
obliged to you for telling me about them, because I always delight in such
matters."

She was quicker of mind than he thought, and rose, taking his last remark
as a hint that he wished to be alone.

"Don't go, Joan, unless you must. I'm a very lonely man, and it is a great
pleasure to me to hear you talk. Look here."

She approached him, and he showed her a pencil sketch now perched on the
easel--a drawing considerably larger than that upon which he had been
working when she arrived.

"This is a rough idea of my picture. It is going to be much larger though,