“I will tell John of your shamelessness,” I said to myself.  “He shall feel no more heartaches for you—­you wanton huzzy.”

Then Leicester poured forth his passion most eloquently.  Poesy, verse, and rhetoric all came to help him in his wooing.  Now and then the girl would respond to his ardor with “Please, my lord,” or “I pray you, my lord,” and when he would try to take her hand she would say, “I beg you, my lord, do not.”  But Leicester evidently thought that the “do not” meant “do,” for soon he began to steal his arm about her waist, and she was so slow in stopping him that I thought she was going to submit.  She, however, arose gently to her feet and said:—­

“My lord, I must return to the Hall.  I may not longer remain here with you.”

The earl caught her hand and endeavored to kiss it, but she adroitly prevented him, and stepping out into the path, started slowly toward the Hall.  She turned her head slightly toward Leicester in a mute but eloquent invitation, and he quickly followed her.

I watched the pair walk up the terrace.  They descended the steps to the garden, and from thence they entered the Hall by way of the porch.

“Was it not very wicked in Dorothy to listen to such words from Leicester?” asked Madge.  “I do not at all understand her.”

Madge, of course, knew only a part of what had happened, and a very small part at that, for she had not seen Dorothy.  Madge and I returned to the Hall, and we went at once to Dorothy’s room, hoping to see her, and intending to tell her our opinion of the shameless manner in which she had acted.

Dorothy was in her room alone when we entered.  She clapped her hands, ran to the door, bolted it, and bounded back toward us.

“I have the greatest news to tell you,” she cried laughingly,—­“the greatest news and the greatest sport of which you ever heard.  My lord Leicester is in love with me.”

“Indeed, that is very fine,” I responded; but my irony met its usual fate.  She did not see it.

“Yes,” continued Dorothy, brimming over with mirth, “you should have heard him pleading with me a few moments since upon the terrace.”

“We did hear him,” said Madge.

“You heard him?  Where?  How?” Her eyes were wide with wonder.

“We were on the opposite side of the holly bush from you,” I answered.  “We heard him and we saw you.”

“Did you?  Good.  I am glad of it,” said Dorothy.

“Yes, we saw and we heard all, and we think that your conduct was shameless,” I responded severely.

“Shameless?” demanded Dorothy.  “Now pray tell me what I did or said that was shameless.”.

I was at a loss to define the wrong in her conduct, for it had been of an intangible quality which in itself was nothing, but notwithstanding meant a great deal.

“You permitted him to hold your hand,” I said, trying to fix on something real with which to accuse her.