 me."

"But you have seen her? Answer honestly."

"Why should I not?—Yes, I have seen her—once or twice or so—but never in any way that could annoy her."

"That explains why you have become so well acquainted with the direction of her walks?"

He coloured deeply. "I hope, Phineas, you do not think that—that in any way I should intrude on or offend a lady?"

"Nay, don't take it so seriously—indeed, I meant nothing of the kind. It would be quite natural if a young man like you did use some pains to look at such a 'cunning piece of Nature's handiwork' as that apple-cheeked girl of seventeen."

"Russet apple. She is brown, you know—a real 'nut-brown mayde,'" said John, recovering his gay humour. "Certainly, I like to look at her. I have seen many a face that was more good-looking—never one that looked half so good."

"Sententious that;" yet I could not smile—he spoke with such earnestness. Besides, it was the truth. I myself would have walked half-way across the common any day for a glance at Miss March. Why not he?

"But, John, you never told me that you had seen her again!"

"Because you never asked me."

We were silent. Silent until we had walked along the whole length of a Roman encampment, the most perfect of the various fosses that seamed the flat—tokens of many a battle fought on such capital battleground, and which John had this morning especially brought me to look at.

"Yes," I said at last, putting the ending affirmative to a long train of thought, which was certainly not about Roman encampments; "yes, it is quite natural that you should admire her. It would even be quite natural, and not unlikely either, if she—"

"Pshaw!" interrupted he. "What nonsense you are talking! Impossible!" and setting his foot sharply upon a loose stone, he kicked it down into the ditch, where probably many a dead Roman had fallen before it in ages gone by.

The impetuous gesture—the energetic "impossible," struck me less than the quickness with which his mind had worked out my unexpressed thought—carrying it to a greater length than I myself had ever contemplated.

"Truly, no possibilities or impossibilities of THAT sort ever entered my head. I only thought you might admire her, and be unsettled thereby as young men are when they take fancies
