“I’ll set the men at it right arter breakfast,—­I’ll ’ave it done, trust me, Miss Anthea.”

“I do, Adam,—­you know that!” And with a smiling nod she turned away.  Now, as Bellew walked on beside her, he felt a strange constraint upon him such as he had never experienced towards any woman before, and the which he was at great pains with himself to account for.  Indeed so rapt was he, that he started suddenly to find that she was asking him a question: 

“Do you—­like Dapplemere, Mr. Bellew?”

“Like it!” he repeated, “like it?  Yes indeed!”

“I’m so glad!” she answered, her eyes glowing with pleasure.  “It was a much larger property, once,—­Look!” and she pointed away across corn-fields and rolling meadow to the distant woods.  “In my grandfather’s time it was all his—­as far as you can see, and farther, but it has dwindled since then, and to-day, my Dapplemere is very small indeed.”

“You must be very fond of such a beautiful place.”

“Oh, I love it!” she cried passionately, “if ever I had to—­give it up,—­I think I should—­die!” She stopped suddenly, and as though somewhat abashed by this sudden outburst, adding in a lighter tone:  “If I seem rather tragic it is because this is the only home I have ever known.”

“Well,” said Bellew, appearing rather more dreamy than usual, just then, “I have journeyed here and there in this world of ours, I have wandered up and down, and to and fro in it,—­like a certain celebrated personage who shall be nameless,—­yet I never saw, or dreamed, of any such place as this Dapplemere of yours.  It is like Arcadia itself, and only I am out of place.  I seem, somehow, to be too common-place, and altogether matter-of-fact.”

“I’m sure I’m matter-of-fact enough,” she said, with her low, sweet laugh that, Bellew thought, was all too rare.

“You?” said he, and shook his head.

“Well?” she enquired, glancing at him through her wind-tossed curls.

“You are like some fair, and stately lady out of the old romances,” he said gravely.

“In a print gown, and with a sun-bonnet!”

“Even so!” he nodded.  Here, for no apparent reason, happening to meet his glance, the colour deepened in her cheek and she was silent; wherefore Bellew went on, in his slow, placid tones.  “You surely, are the Princess ruling this fair land of Arcadia, and I am the Stranger within your gates.  It behoves you, therefore, to be merciful to this Stranger, if only for the sake of—­er—­our mutual nephew.”

Whatever Anthea might have said in answer was cut short by Small Porges himself who came galloping towards them with the sun bright in his curls.

“Oh, Uncle Porges!” he panted as he came up, “I was ’fraid you’d gone away an’ left me,—­I’ve been hunting, an’ hunting for you ever since I got up.”

“No, I haven’t gone away yet, my Porges, you see.”

“An’ you won’t go—­ever or ever, will you?”