"It is nothing," I answered, "unless it be that I have not yet recovered from Black George's fist; it is nothing!" And so the meal drew to an end, and though, feeling my thoughts base, I sat with my head on my hand and my eyes upon the cloth, yet I knew she watched me, and more than once I heard her sigh. A man who acts on impulse may sometimes be laughed at for his mistakes, but he will frequently attain to higher things, and be much better loved by his fellows than the colder, more calculating logician who rarely makes a blunder; and Simon Peter was a man of impulse.

Supper being over and done, Charmian must needs take my coat, despite my protests, and fall to work upon its threadbare shabbiness, mending a great rent in the sleeve. And, watching her through the smoke of my pipe, noting the high mould of her features, the proud poise of her head, the slender elegance of her hands, I was struck sharply by her contrast to the rough, bare walls that were my home, and the toil-worn, unlovely garment beneath her fingers. As I looked, she seemed to be suddenly removed from me--far above and beyond my reach.

"That is the fourth time, Peter."

"What, Charmian?"

"That is the fourth time you have sighed since you lighted your pipe, and it is out, and you never noticed it!"

"Yes" said I, and laid the pipe upon the table and sighed again, before I could stop myself. Charmian raised her head, and looked at me with a laugh in her eyes.

"Oh, most philosophical, dreamy blacksmith! where be your thoughts?"

"I was thinking how old and worn and disreputable my coat looked."

"Indeed, sir," said Charmian, holding it up and regarding it with a little frown, "forsooth it is ancient, and hath seen better days."

"Like its wearer!" said I, and sighed again.

"Hark to this ancient man!" she laughed, "this hoary-headed blacksmith of ours, who sighs, and forever sighs; if it could possibly be that he had met any one sufficiently worthy--I should think that he had fallen--philosophically--in love; how think you, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance?"

"I remember," said I, "that, among other things, you once called me 'Superior Mr. Smith.'" Charmian laughed and nodded her head at me.

"You had been describing to me some quite impossible, idealistic creature, alone worthy of your regard, sir."

"Do you still think me 'superior,' Charmian?"

"Do you still dream of your impalpable, bloodlessly-perfect ideals, sir?"

"No," I answered; "no, I think I have done with dreaming."

"And I have done with this, thy coat, for behold! it is finished," and rising, she folded it over the back of my chair.

Now, as she stood thus behind me, her hand fell and, for a moment, rested lightly upon my shoulder.

"Peter."

"Yes, Charmian."

"I wish, yes, I do wish that you were either much younger or very much older."

"Why?"

"Because you wouldn't be quite so--so cryptic--such a very abstruse problem. Sometimes I think I understand you better than you do yourself, and sometimes I am utterly lost; now, if you were younger I could read you easily for myself, and, if you were older, you would read yourself for me."

"I was never very young!" said I.

"No, you were always too repressed, Peter."

"Yes, perhaps I was."

"Repression is good up to a certain point, but beyond that it is dangerous," said she, with a portentous shake of the head.

"Heigho! was it a week or a year ago that you avowed yourself happy, and couldn't tell why?"

"I was the greater fool!" said I.

"For not knowing why, Peter?"

"For thinking myself happy!"

"Peter, what is happiness?"

"An idea," said I, "possessed generally of fools!"

"And what is misery?"

"Misery is also an idea."

"Possessed only by the wise, Peter; surely he is wiser who chooses happiness?"

"Neither happiness nor misery comes from choice."

"But--if one seeks happiness, Peter?"

"One will assuredly find misery!" said I, and, sighing, rose, and taking my hammer from its place above my bookshelf, set to work upon my brackets, driving them deep into the heavy framework of the door. All at once I stopped, with my hammer poised, and, for no reason in the world, looked back at Charmian, over my shoulder; looked to find her watching me with eyes that were (if it could well be) puzzled, wistful, shy, and glad at one and the same time; eyes that veiled themselves swiftly before my look, yet that shot one last glance, between their lashes, in which were only joy and laughter.

"Yes?" said I, answering the look. But she only stooped her head and went on sewing; yet the color was bright in her cheeks.

And, having driven in the four brackets, or staples, and closed the door, I took up the bars and showed her how they were to lie crosswise across the door, resting in the brackets.

"We shall be safe now, Peter," said she; "those bars would resist--an elephant."

"I think they would," I nodded; "but there is yet something more."

Going to my shelf of books I took thence the silver-mounted pistol she had brought with her, and balanced it in my hand. "To-morrow I will take this to Cranbrook, and buy bullets to fit it."

"Why, there are bullets there--in one of the old shoes, Peter."

"They are too large; this is an unusually small calibre, and yet it would be deadly enough at close range. I will load it for you, Charmian, and give it into your keeping, in case you should ever--grow afraid again, when I am not by; this is a lonely place--for a woman--at all times."

"Yes, Peter." She was busily employed upon a piece of embroidery, and began to sing softly to herself again as she worked,--that old song which worthy Mr. Pepys mentions having heard from the lips of mischievous-eyed Nell Gwynn:

"In Scarlet town, where I was born, There was a fair maid dwellin', Made every youth cry Well-a-way!

Her name was Barbara Allen."

"Are you so happy, Charmian?"

"Oh, sir, indifferent well, I thank you.

"'All in the merry month of May When green buds they were swellin', Young Jemmy Grove on his death-bed lay, For love of Barbara Allen.'