"Yea," said she, looking at him wonderingly, "hast thou not been fetching my horse to me?"

"So it is," said he; "but something else also. Ask me, or I cannot tell thee."

She laughed, and said: "What else, fair sir?"

Said he: "Ask me what, or I cannot tell thee."

He answered, stammering and blushing: "I have been looking at thy foot prints, whereby thou camest up from the water, to see what new and fairer blossoms have come up in the meadow where thy feet were set e'en now."

She answered him nothing, and he held his peace. But in a while she said: "If thou wouldst have us come to thine house, thou shalt lead us thither now." And therewith she took her foot-gear from out of her girdle, as if she would do it on, and he turned his face away, but sighed therewith. Then she reddened and put them back again, and rose up lightly, and said: "I will go afoot; and wilt thou lead the horse for me?"

So did he, and led her by all the softest and most flowery ways, turning about the end of a spur of the little hill that came close to the water, and going close to the lip of the river. And when they had thus turned about the hill there was a somewhat wider vale before them, grassy and fair, and on a knoll, not far from the water, a long frame-house thatched with reed.

Then said Christopher: "Lady, this is now Littledale, and yonder the house thereof."