Oh! how I hope the Long Man
will not see them!"
John Derringham did not let go her hand at once; there was something
soft and pleasant in the touch of the cool little fingers.
"I want to hear about everything," he said. "Tell me of the Long
Man--and the fawns, and why there are only six. I am having the happiest
morning I have had for years."
So Halcyone began. She glossed a good deal over the facts she had told
Mr. Carlyon upon the subject because she did not feel she knew this
stranger well enough to let him into her aunts' private affairs--so she
turned the interest to the deer themselves, and they chatted on about
all sorts of animals and their ways, and John Derringham was entranced
and felt quite aggrieved when she said it was getting late and she must
go back to the house for her early dinner. He swung himself down from
the tree by the high branch with ease and stood ready to catch her, but
with a nimbleness he did not expect, she crept round to the lower side
and was landed upon the soft turf before he could reach her.
Then he walked back with her to the broken gate, telling her about his
own old home the while, and then they paused to say good-by.
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