“Why, they are quite as wet as your feet; and I cannot bear to see your feet.  Oh, please to let me manage them; I will do it very softly.”

“Oh, I don’t think much of that,” I replied; “I shall put some goose-grease to them.  But how you are looking at me!  I never saw any one like you before.  My name is John Ridd.  What is your name?”

“Lorna Doone,” she answered, in a low voice, as if afraid of it, and hanging her head so that I could see only her forehead and eyelashes; “if you please, my name is Lorna Doone; and I thought you must have known it.”

Then I stood up and touched her hand, and tried to make her look at me; but she only turned away the more.  Young and harmless as she was, her name alone made guilt of her.  Nevertheless I could not help looking at her tenderly, and the more when her blushes turned into tears, and her tears to long, low sobs.

“Don’t cry,” I said, “whatever you do.  I am sure you have never done any harm.  I will give you all my fish Lorna, and catch some more for mother; only don’t be angry with me.”

She flung her little soft arms up in the passion of her tears, and looked at me so piteously, that what did I do but kiss her.  It seemed to be a very odd thing, when I came to think of it, because I hated kissing so, as all honest boys must do.  But she touched my heart with a sudden delight, like a cowslip-blossom (although there were none to be seen yet), and the sweetest flowers of spring.

She gave me no encouragement, as my mother in her place would have done; nay, she even wiped her lips (which methought was rather rude of her), and drew away, and smoothed her dress, as if I had used a freedom.  Then I felt my cheeks grow burning red, and I gazed at my legs and was sorry.  For although she was not at all a proud child (at any rate in her countenance), yet I knew that she was by birth a thousand years in front of me.  They might have taken and framed me, or (which would be more to the purpose) my sisters, until it was time for us to die, and then have trained our children after us, for many generations; yet never could we have gotten that look upon our faces which Lorna Doone had naturally, as if she had been born to it.

Here was I, a yeoman’s boy, a yeoman every inch of me, even where I was naked; and there was she, a lady born, and thoroughly aware of it, and dressed by people of rank and taste, who took pride in her beauty and set it to advantage.  For though her hair was fallen down by reason of her wildness, and some of her frock was touched with wet where she had tended me so, behold her dress was pretty enough for the queen of all the angels.  The colours were bright and rich indeed, and the substance very sumptuous, yet simple and free from tinsel stuff, and matching most harmoniously.  All from her waist to her neck was white, plaited in close like a curtain, and the dark soft weeping of her hair, and the shadowy light of her eyes (like a wood rayed through with sunset), made it seem yet whiter, as if it were done on purpose.  As for the rest, she knew what it was a great deal better than I did, for I never could look far away from her eyes when they were opened upon me.