made bright his features.  It was a sulky, sleepy, sweet, changeable face—­very fascinating in the eyes of women.  His musical laugh once fluttered sundry young bosoms, brightened many pretty eyes and cheeks, but Will’s heart was Phoebe Lyddon’s now—­had been for six full months—­and albeit a mere country boy in knowledge of the world, younger far than his one-and-twenty years of life, and wholly unskilled in those arts whose practice enables men to dwell together with friendship and harmony, yet Will Blanchard was quite old enough and wise enough and rich enough to wed, and make a husband of more than common quality at that—­in his own opinion.

Fortified by this conviction, and determined to wait no longer, he now came to see Phoebe.  Within the sheltering arms of the Pixies’ Parlour he kissed her, pressed her against his wet velveteen jacket, then sat down under the rocks beside her.

“You ‘m comed wi’ the sun, dear Will.”

“Ay—­the weather breaks.  I hope theer’ll be a drop more water down the river bimebye.  You got my letter all right?”

“Ess fay, else I shouldn’t be here.  And this tremendous matter in hand?”

“I thought you’d guess what ‘t was.  I be weary o’ waitin’ for ‘e.  An’ as I comed of age last month, I’m a man in law so well as larnin’, and I’m gwaine to speak to Miller Lyddon this very night.”

Phoebe looked blank.  There was a moment’s silence while Will picked and ate the wood-strawberries in his sweetheart’s dress.

“Caan’t ‘e think o’ nothin’ wiser than to see faither?” she said at last.

“Theer ban’t nothin’ wiser.  He knaws we ’m tokened, and it’s no manner o’ use him gwaine on pretendin’ to himself ’t isn’t so.  You ’m wife-old, and you’ve made choice o’ me; and I’m a ripe man, as have thought a lot in my time, and be earnin’ gude money and all.  Besides, ’t is a dead-sure fact I’ll have auld Morgan’s place as head waterkeeper, an’ the cottage along with it, in fair time.”

“Ban’t for me to lift up no hindrances, but you knaw faither.”

“Ess, I do—­for a very stiff-necked man.”

“Maybe ’t is so; but a gude faither to me.”

“An’ a gude friend to me, for that matter.  He aint got nothing ’gainst me, anyway—­no more ’s any man living.”

“Awnly the youth and fieriness of ’e.”

“Me fiery!  I lay you wouldn’t find a cooler chap in Chagford.”

“You ’m a dinky bit comical-tempered now and again, dear heart.”

He flushed, and the corners of his jaw thickened.

“If a man was to say that, I’d knock his words down his throat.”

“I knaw you would, my awn Will; an’ that’s bein’ comical-tempered, ban’t it?”

“Then perhaps I’d best not to see your faither arter all, if you ’m that way o’ thinkin’,” he answered shortly.

Then Phoebe purred to him and rubbed her cheek against his chin, whereon the glint vanished from his eyes, and they were soft again.