"Can you excuse me now ?" "I had excused you long ago;" said the kindhearted father.

"Alas, that so much fair red and white should have been created only as a feast for worms!" "A feast for gods, you mean!" cried Eustace, on whose common sense the naive absurdity of the last speech struck keenly; and then, as if to escape the scolding which he deserved for his heathenry-- "Will you let me return for a moment?
I will follow you: let me go!" Campian saw that it was of no use to say no, and nodded.

Eustace darted from his side, and running across a field, met Rose full at the next turn of the road.
She started, and gave a pretty little shriek.
"Mr.Leigh! I thought you had gone forward." "I came back to speak to you, Rose--Mistress Salterne, I mean." "To me ?" "To you I must speak, tell you all, or die!" And he pressed up close to her.

She shrank back, somewhat frightened.
"Do not stir; do not go, I implore you! Rose, only hear me!" And fiercely and passionately seizing her by the hand, he poured out the whole story of his love, heaping her with every fantastic epithet of admiration which he could devise.
There was little, perhaps, of all his words which Rose had not heard many a time before; but there was a quiver in his voice, and a fire in his eye, from which she shrank by instinct.
"Let me go!" she said; "you are too rough, sir!" "Ay!" he said, seizing now both her hands, "rougher, perhaps, than the gay gallants of Bideford, who serenade you, and write sonnets to you, and send you posies.

Rougher, but more loving, Rose! Do not turn away! I shall die if you take your eyes off me! Tell me,--tell me, now here--this moment--before we part--if I may love you!" "Go away!" she answered, struggling, and bursting into tears.