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182 me, making me start so violently that I nearly topple over into the brook

"Did I not tell you," I say, without turning my head, "that I was tired to death of the very sight of you; and that you were not to come near me for three whole days?"

"The three whole days will be up to-morrow, Nell."

"To-morrow is not to-day," I say, turning round. "Now I wonder what you would say if you were followed everywhere by a tiresome, teazing shadow, that never left you alone for a single moment, and the more you told it to go away, the more it stopped?"

"Everybody has a shadow," he says, "I among the rest."

"Does your shadow make love to you?" I ask, stamping my foot on the soft grass. "Whether you will or no, does it?"

"No, it does not," he says shortly. "Go on, Nell; don't be afraid of hurting my feelings!"

"Then you should not worry me so. Now I have had quite a little holiday the last two days, and of course you have come this afternoon to spoil it all! If you would only talk to me sensibly, as Jack does"

"Only I am not Jack," he says—"worse luck. You would like me if I were."

"I like you now," I say quickly: "next to mother and the rest of them, I do not know any one I like so well. Why can't you be satisfied with that?"

"Nell," says the young man, standing before me, straight and tall and fair in the sunlight, with a vexed look in his blue eyes, and restless fingers that tug at his yellow moustache, "what did you promise me four years ago?"

"That when I was eighteen and six months old I would marry you, if I had not seen any one I liked better."

"And you are going to break your promise?"

"No," I say, looking up into his honest face. "Did I not tell