With a flush deep as the autumn leaves she carried, she was hurrying on, when suddenly in the opening before her, a shadow fell, and a mellow voice exclaimed in her ear,
“Do I meet Miss Fairchild in her native woods?”
It was Clarence Ensign.
The surprise was very great and it took her a moment to steady herself. She had felt so assured that she should never see him or any other of her New York friends again. Had not Cicely written that he had gone West, soon after her own departure from New York. With a deepening of his voice Mr. Ensign repeated the question.
At once the day seemed to acquire all it had hitherto lacked. Looking up, she met his eye fixed admiringly upon her, and all that was merry, lightsome and gay within her, leaped at once to the surface. Ignoring his question with smiling abandon, she exclaimed,
“What shall be done to the man who delights in surprises and startles timid maidens without a cause?”
“He shall be held in captivity by the hand of his denouncer, until he has sued for pardon and obtained her generous forgiveness,” returned he, holding out his palm.
She barely touched it with her own. “I see that your repentance is sincere, so your pardon shall be speedy,” laughed she.
“Your discrimination is at fault, I never felt more impenitent in my life. I am a hardened wretch, Miss Fairchild, a hardened wretch! But you do not ask me from what corner of the earth I have come. You take me too much for granted; like the chirrup of a squirrel, let me say, or the whistle of a bullfinch. But perhaps you think I inhabit these woods?”