"I will trouble you then no further, and Dorothy shall aid me,
though there needs no assistance; my father's eye and fingers are
faithful to his craft: what work he puts through his hands is always
true to the measure."

"Let me be convinced of it," said the smith--"let me see that
these slender gloves actually match the hands they were made for."

"Some other time, good Henry," answered the maiden, "I will wear
the gloves in honour of St. Valentine, and the mate he has sent
me for the season. I would to Heaven I could pleasure my father as
well in weightier matters; at present the perfume of the leather
harms the headache I have had since morning."

"Headache, dearest maiden!" echoed her lover.

"If you call it heartache, you will not misname it," said Catharine,
with a sigh, and proceeded to speak in a very serious tone.

"Henry," she said, "I am going perhaps to be as bold as I gave you
reason to think me this morning; for I am about to speak the first
upon a subject on which, it may well be, I ought to wait till I had
to answer you. But I cannot, after what has happened this morning,
suffer my feelings towards you to remain unexplained, without the
possibility of my being greatly misconceived. Nay, do not answer
till you have heard me out. You are brave, Henry, beyond most men,
honest and true as the steel you work upon--"

"Stop--stop, Catharine, for mercy's sake! You never said so much
that was good concerning me, save to introduce some bitter censure,