And, as I gazed upon her, silent and wondering, lo! though her mouth was solemn yet there was laughter in her eyes as she spoke.

“Well, sir—­have you no greeting for me?”

“It—­is a—­very fine morning!” said I. And now the merriment overflowed her eyes, and she laughed, yet blushed a little, too, and lowered her eyes from mine, and said, still laughing: 

“Oh, Peter—­the teapot—­do mind the teapot!”

“Teapot?” I repeated, and then I saw that I still held it in my hand.

“Pray, sir—­what might you be going to do with the teapot in one hand, and that fork in the other?”

“I was going to make the tea, I remember,” said I.

“Is that why you were standing there staring at the kettle while it boiled over?”

“I—­forgot all about the kettle,” said I. So Charmian took the teapot from me, and set about brewing the tea, singing merrily the while.  Anon she began to fry the bacon, giving each individual slice its due amount of care and attention; but, her eyes chancing to meet mine, the song died upon her lip, her lashes flickered and fell, while up from throat to brow there crept a slow, hot wave of crimson.  And in that moment I turned away and strode down to the brook.

Now it happened that I came to that same spot where she had leaned and, flinging myself down, I fell to studying my reflection in the water, even as she had done.

Heretofore, though I had paid scant heed to my appearance, I had been content (in a certain impersonal sort of way), had dressed in the fashion, and taken advantage of such adornments as were in favor, as much from habit as from any set design; but now, lying beside the brook with my chin propped in my hands, I began to study myself critically, feature by feature, as I had never dreamed of doing before.

Mirrored in the clear waters I beheld a face lean and brown, and with lank, black hair; eyes, dark and of a strange brilliance, looked at me from beneath a steep prominence of brow; I saw a somewhat high-bridged nose with thin, nervous nostrils, a long, cleft chin, and a disdainful mouth.

Truly, a saturnine face, cold and dark and unlovely, and thus —­even as I gazed—­the mouth grew still more disdainful, and the heavy brow lowered blacker and more forbidding.  And yet, in that same moment, I found myself sighing, while I strove to lend some order to the wildness of my hair.

“Fool!” said I, and plunged my head beneath the water, and held it there so long that I came up puffing and blowing; whereupon I caught up the towel and fell to rubbing myself vigorously, so that presently, looking down into the water again, I saw that my hair was wilder than ever—­all rubbed into long elf-locks.  Straightway I lifted my hands, and would have smoothed it somewhat, but checked the impulse.

“Let be,” said I to myself, turning away, “let be.  I am as I am, and shall be henceforth in very truth a village blacksmith—­and content so to be—­absolutely content.”