While she stood thus, with something drawing her on and something drawing her back, and palpitating in every fiber, Mrs. Wilson’s voice was heard in low but anxious tones calling her.  A feather turned the balanced scale.  She must go.  Fate had decided for her.  She was called.  Then the sprites of mischief tempted her to let David know she had been near him.  She longed to put his commission into his pocket; but that was impossible.  It was at the very bottom of her box.  She took out her tablets, wrote the word “Adieu,” tore out half the leaf, and, bending over David, attached the little bit of paper by a pin to the tail of his coat.  If he had been ever so much awake he could not have felt her doing it; for her hand touching him, and the white paper settling on his coat, was all done as lights a spot of down on still water from the bending neck of a swan.

“No, dear Mrs. Wilson, we must not go yet.  I will hold the horse, and you must go back for me for something.”

“I’m agreeable.  What is it?  Why, what is up?  How you do pant!”

“I have made a discovery.  There is a gentleman lying asleep there on the wet grass.”

“Lackadaisy! why, you don’t say so.”

“It is a friend; and he will catch his death.”

“Why, of course he will.  He will have had a drop too much, Miss Lucy.  I’ll wake him, and we will take him along home with us.”

“Oh, not for the world, nurse.  I would not have him see what I am doing, oh, not for all the world!”

“Where is he?”

“In there, under the great tree.”

“Well, you get into the cart, miss, and hold the reins”; and Mrs. Wilson went into the grounds and soon found David.

She put her hand on his shoulder, and he awoke directly, and looked surprised at Mrs. Wilson.

“Are you better, sir?” said the good woman.  “Why, if it isn’t the handsome gentleman that was so kind to me!  Now do ee go in, sir—­do ee go in.  You will catch your death o’ cold.”  She made sure he was staying at the house.

David looked up at Lucy’s windows.  “Yes, I will go home, Mrs. Wilson; there is nothing to stay for now”; and he accompanied her to the cart.  But Mrs. Wilson remembered Lucy’s desire not to be seen; so she said very loud, “I’m sure it’s very lucky me and my niece happened to be coming home so late, and see you lying there.  Well, one good turn deserves another.  Come and see me at my farm; you go through the village of Harrowden, and anybody there will tell you where Dame Wilson do live.  I would ask you to-night, but—­” she hesitated, and Lucy let down her veil.

“No, thank you, not now; my sister will be fretting as it is.  Good-morning”; and his steps were heard retreating as Mrs. Wilson mounted the cart.