pretty girl, dressed with more flounces | ever like these pretty fancy pictures; and

and furbelows than quite suited the weather or the dwelling. With rather an affected, lively, conscious manner, she began, "What! Mr. Gilbert, who'd ha' thought o' seeing you today?"

"Rosy!" cried he, in great amaze, "what, are you here?"

now, instead of the tender meeting she had promised herself, he beseeching and entreating, and declaring that he could not live without her, and she coyly yielding after much and tender pressure, he was accepting his dismissal as a matter of course, submitting far too philosophi cally, she thought, to the fiat of the authorities, taking for granted that all was over between them, instead of beg

"And why not?" answered she, bridling and mincing as she walked before him into an empty, stone-flagged parlor on the left of the passage, very scantily fur-ging and praying for mercy, as she was nished.

"I didn't know you was in town, that's all," said he gloomily, as he paused at the door, and looked down at his own muddy condition. "I ayn't fit for to come in nowheres. I'm too dirty and too dripping for such fine folk;" and he looked at her smartness half admiringly and half angrily. "And I'm fit for nothing neither, - that's what it is; I'm well nigh heartbroke," he added, almost fiercely. "We shanna overget such a run o' ill luck as this, not by no means, and yer father's quite right, no doubt, when he's wrote to say he won't gie ye to a ruined man. So what's the use o' my comin in, after all as has been said and done?"

"You're most wonderful ready for to take his word for it and be off, to be sure," answered the girl, kindling, and losing her affected manner; 66 you might ha' waited till so be I'd spoke myself and set ye free, I take it! I wants to keep no man on as doesn't want to keep me, I'd let you know that, Mr. Gilbert! And so that little matter's settled, and now ye may go as soon as ye please, and sooner too!" she ended angrily, her color rising, and her bright eyes sparkling with annoyance.

66

sure Sam would ha' done." It was too provoking, and she could have cried with vexation.

"Gie us a good word at parting, Rosy, won't ye? who knows when we shall meet again? Shake hands wi' me, if it's the last time," said poor Gilbert entreatingly, as he stood with the handle of the door in his hand before going out again, sor rowfully and unwillingly, into the dank evening. But she was too indignant to hear the tone; the real feeling within her made her only more intent upon showing (but too successfully) that she "did not mind," as she turned away from him without speaking.

If he didn't care for her more than that, she wasn't going to break her heart for him. J'en aurai du regret, mais je n'en mourrai pas,' as the old French song has it. There were as good fish and better in the sea, everybody said, and no lack of suitors for one like her. And, having almost slammed the house door after him, she threw herself down on the old, hardhearted horsehair sofa and cried as if her heart would break, crumpling all the little bobs and bows which (in this instance at least) she had put on in the innocent coquetry of wishing to look her He looked at her for a moment with a prettiest in his sight. It was a pity that serious, passionate affection, which would Gilbert could not have looked back and have moved her deeply at another time; seen what was going on inside the house, but she was vexed and hurt, and intent on but if he had returned she would only not showing any superfluous emotion on have received him more coldly than ever. her own side, and refused to see the feel-"I hate him, that's what I do!" she reing on his. peated to herself, with unnecessary veheShe had come to the little town on pur-mence, as she bit her lips. "Why did he pose to try and see Gilbert, and tell him fault my gown and all, too? A nasty, she should hold to her word in spite of cold-hearted chap, as isn't worth my giv her father's prohibition, and her own ing a tear for!" but she cried on all the flights of naughtiness and temper in the same. past. She had rehearsed the whole scene within herself what he would say about Sam Churchill, how he would look, and above all, how she should look, and how she should end by making an amends, without at all acknowledging that she had been in the wrong a feat in which some women excel. But realities are hardly

Presently she heard a heavy footfall in the flagged passage and started up, smoothing her ruffled locks and dainty arrangements, as the mistress of the house, a large, unwieldy woman, whose speech was as slow and deliberate as her actions, came into the room. "I thought as I heerd Gilbert Sherard's

1

D

voice. Is he gone so quick as all that? | had a wrote for to say you was coming,
I were just a-going for to ax him for to I'd not ha' let you show your face in my
stop and have summat to eat. What on house, to play wi' an honest man's heart,
airth is he gone for like a runaway horse?"
said Mrs. Seddon.

"He hadn't time not to stay," said Rosy shortly, with a very good show of indifference.

"He's enow to do, that's certain sure, with the weather so tickle,* and farming work where 'tis, without going neighboring; only what for then did he come in here at all, and not so much as ax for me?" observed Mrs. Seddon phlegmatically. "So now you'd best come in to your tea; the pikelets is a gettin' cold."

They had not long sat down when, ruminating slowly, after her fashion, as she helped the girl to the indigestible buttered cake, Mrs. Seddon went on, "I thowt ye telled me ye wanted tu see Gilbert? Why, ye hadn't time not to say nothink! How were it he didn't stop a bit, and he come so far, and so wet as it is to-night?

Rosy gulped down her tears and her tea together, as she repeated mechanically, "He were after something some where, and it's so late that he couldn't stop no longer."

"In my young days it weren't never too late for a young man as were after courting a young girl for to stop a bit, and he'd a squeedged ten minutes out o' the hardest day's work ever mortal man had a knowed, for to see her. There's more nor that underneath it, Rosy, so don't you tell me."

But Rosy was quite silent.

as if ye were a kitten wi' a ball; I can tell ye that," ended Mrs. Seddon, with an indignation which was not the less but the more weighty for being long in arriv ing.

By this time Rosy was sobbing without any restraint, her heart was opened, she was very unhappy, and she would have been glad of her cousin's help and sympathy in her perplexities. She might have acknowledged her wrong, and got Mrs. Seddon's help in setting it straight; but there was no knowing what the

mights" and the "coulds" would have brought about, for the door opened and Mr. Seddon himself came in, followed by a young man. The corn-chandler was a comfortable, smug little man, with a great tendency to small jokes; and Rosy, heartily disinclined to have her causes of agitation discussed and her tears commented on by him, started up and began busying herself about tea-cups in a dim corner of the large, low room.

"I've a brought Mr. Sam's brother in to tea, missis," said old Seddon, with a chuckle, feeling that he had done a very smart thing. His wife could have bitten him,-slowly, as was her wont, but none the less sharply. "And I'm not sure as Mr. Sam's not to the fore himself afore evening's out, and what'll ye say to that, I wonder?" he went on exultingly.

Rosy was in a very penitent mood; but at that period of her life it was quite out of her power not to smile and make herself agreeable to any young man; and though Mr. Sam's brother was at that moment as unwelcome to her as any one of the male species could be, she was soon laughing and talking with him, ap. parently as cheerfully as ever she had done.

Mrs. Seddon was extremely annoyed. She looked on with a face glum with disgust, and preserved almost unbroken silence when Sam Churchill joined the party.

"You've a got yerself into a scrape, Rosy, my lass, can see that," went on Mrs. Seddon, spearing another triangle of muffin on to her two-pronged fork. "I've a heerd o' yer goings on wi' that there Sam Churchill, what isn't fit to hold a candle to Gilbert, no not if the one hadn't a penny, and the other t'other were just sewn up wi' gold! I've a knowed him, that's Gilbert, man and boy, this nigh six-and-twenty years, and that's about sin he were in arms, and there ayn't a better bit o' man's flesh goes upo' two legs, and his mother and father afore him But the graver she grew the more Rotoo; it's a good stock, and I thinks a deal sy's spirit of opposition rose, and the o' what stock a chap comes on. And more vigorously she flirted. She laughed there you and that precious father o' loudly at Sam's bad jokes, capped his yourn together has a flung him overboard, stories, answered his banter. Old SedI hear tell, when he's sad, and sinking, don, delighted at the success of his evenand solitary; and if I'd knowed as muching, and greatly amused with the change as I do now o' yer goings on, when you

from his wife's heavy, sensible discourse, encouraged the fun, and aided and abetted all the nonsense that was flying about his little hot parlor.

Mrs. Seddon disdained to interfere further. 66 'Why, she hasn't as much heart as would serve a sparra," thought she to herself, as she sat and knitted her wrath into a long blue worsted stocking. "What a fool Gilbert is to waste hisn on such a

cockalorum jig as she, with a' her bobs, and flounces, and curls! and that takes arter her mother as she do! And I'm a fool for my pains to care what Sally Brown's darter do do; they're both cut off the same joint and cooked wi' the same sauce. As she's brewed so mun she bake, and I wash my hands o' the girl."

At last the two young men rose to go, Sam making a plunge at a rose, which the girl had put into her dress with a very different intention thinking of Gilbert, indeed, as she picked and fixed it, and now letting his rival carry off the prize.

"Come back again to-morrow if ye can, and we'll have some more fun," shouted old Seddon, as he followed them out.

"Rosy," said Mrs. Seddon, as the girl came back from a whispered adieu at the door. "I understood ye to tell me ye wanted to come here for to speak to Gil bert Sherard, as had took ill summat as had happened betwixt and between ye, and to make it up. I niver thowt to live to see one of my own kin, yer mother's child, carrying on like that there, wi' two on them chaps at once! Me and she were sisters' children, and right fond I were of my aunt, yer grandmother, and I won't have not any such doings where I am!"

"Did ye appint them two young chaps here or no? tell me that."

"I can't prevent any young men from coming anywheres they've a mind to. How can I?" answered Rosy mutinously. "I axed ye whether ye telled 'em yer was coming here to-day? persisted her uncompromising hostess.

They knowed it somehow, I b'lieve," admitted the girl unwillingly. Mrs. Seddon marched out of the room without a word more. "Oh, don't, cousin Seddon !" " cried Rosy, following her and taking hold vehemently of her arm. "I know I've behaved very bad, but ye munna throw me off like that! there's none to help me only you. They laugh at home when I'm sarcy and flighty, and think as it's smart and rather grand-like to have a lot on 'em trailin' after me; but I do care for Gilbert, oh, no end o' times more nor that Sam! And you'll be good to me, won't ye? and help me to be good, dear!" and she flung her arms tenderly round the old woman's neck.

There was no resisting the passionate appeal. Mrs. Seddon suffered herself to be led into the back parlor, and smoothed her ruffled brow while Rosy poured forth her doubts, and her difficulties, and troubles, sitting on a low stool, with the firelight playing on her dark eyes and heightening the color on her cheeks. Her upturned face looked very bewitching in her earnest mood, as the old woman could not help acknowledging to herself, at first with a somewhat unwilling smile, "You're no call to speak to me like till at last she was won over to bestow a that faulting and scolding me so un-kiss on the brown head which had been kind!" cried Rosy hotly. "You're not laid on her knees, and with it some excelmy mother anyhow. You're on'y my lent advice, which her wayward little cousin." cousin took with unwonted meekness, the " edges of the medicine cup" having been sweetened according to Tasso's receipt.

"Thank heaven, no I ayn't," answered Mrs. Seddon in a heartfelt tone, which was anything but complimentary, and galled the spoiled little beauty to the quick; "but whether or no I haven't the right to set my lady straight, as bein' only her cousin, this is my house, and such goings on as yourn sha'n't be under my rooftree, not by nobody; so there, you may make yer own accounts o' that!"

Rosy pouted, but her excitement was over, the better spirit was beginning to return; she turned away, with the tears clinging to her long black eyelashes, and looked very pretty and very penitent, in a way which was generally quite successful in disarming wrath; but Mrs. Seddon, in a hardened tone, went on quite unmoved by "beauty's spell,"

THE OLD HOUSE IN THE FRESHET.

GILBERT passed on with angry strides until he reached the farther end of the little town, where, near the coal wharf by the canal, he found his horse and cart, laden and ready to start, standing in the cold and rain, waiting dismally before the door of the public-house where their driver had been carousing for the last few hours. The horse pricked up his ears as its master approached. "If it isn't enow to make a dog ashamed," said he fiercely, to the ostler who stood lounging by with a straw in his mouth. "You just tell

that Esau I've come and took the horse | did an additional drop signify?" thought and cart away, and he may stop now till he, as he prepared for his journey. He midnight if he pleases, for he sha'n't come was always the willing horse, on whose back to the Low Lees not so long as he've shoulders all men (that could) placed their breath in his body, that I promise him, a burdens. lazy, drunken rascal! And he drove off at a more rapid rate than quite suited either his steed or his load. As he passed the turn to the Seddons' he saw Sam Churchill walking up to the house. "Eh, no wonder she were in such a hurry to get rid o' me," thought he bitterly; "she were expecting that young chap for to court her here, and that's what she come for to Knowlton, no doubt, and I were fool enow to think maybe she'd chose it for to speak to me again!" It seemed hard that she should have come into his very neighborhood to throw this additional bitter drop into his already full cup, and he drove home in the very gall of bitter

Gilbert had been hard at such work as could be done on the farm, when about two in the afternoon the postman reached Low Lees, having had to make a great circuit to deliver his budget at all. He put a solicitor's letter into George's hands, which the brothers had been expecting sadly for several days.

Hopkins wunna wait; they say they'll put in a distress. Thee mun go over to Knowlton and see whether there's aught to be done, and there's Farmer Grimsby talked as how he'd offer for the grey mare; what's the use o' keepin' o' her, eating off her head, and we mun grab now at any money we can get to live. Tak' her to him and see."

"Why don't you go, yoursen, George?" answered Gilbert wearily; "it's your turn to-day, surely."

Esau had kept carefully out of his master's way until now, doing odd jobs; but it was of no use delaying longer, and he came up to Gilbert, as he was starting, with a petition for forgiveness. "We can't kip ye a day longer," answered he angrily; "we've forgiv' ye twice a'ready; nothing safe wi' ye, and I'd rather do the cartering mysen than ha' such doings as yourn. The little un's worth ten o' ye. I'll pay 'ye to th' end o' th' week, so be gone wi' ye."

Esau sneaked out of the room with the money in his hand, and the first thought in his mind was how much good drink was contained in it, if he could but reach the Lone Tree without going home. How could he do better with his earnings than take his pleasure speedily, before they were "frittered away" in necessaries for all those hungry mouths that awaited them? He hurried on as fast as he could to the public-house, and was soon stretching out his legs before its fire, drinking his beer, and "thinking o' nothin' at a"" the acme of bliss to one of his species, the utterly selfish, who are not troubled by remorse of any kind for their misdeeds.

Meantime Gilbert had ridden the great rough grey mare by the upper longer road to Farmer Grimsby's and left it there on trial, after which he pursued his way on foot to Knowlton. There was a painful look of black care on his handsome face, which had grown thin and worn in the last year; lines of sadness were eating into it with the constant anxieties gnawing at his heart, as he felt how all his chances of happiness, his fortune, his hopes, were melting away in that muddy yeast of waves that was closing in around him.

As he neared the town, the flood grew narrower, but also stronger. The people looked blanker than even the day before. "Why it's risen four feet sin' yester"Because you're a better hand at a bar-day marnin'! What will us come to if it gain; and I don't like facing them lawyers, dunna stop? Them folks in the upper and that's a fact. Thee long legs 'ull mak' chambers will be downright clemmed nothing o' the walk," replied George, wi' cold, and fever 'll break out wi' all laughing sheepishly and looking at his that slime and dirt running in and out," brother's tall, well-set figure and athletic said one man after another to him as he limbs, very unlike his own squat, thick passed up the dull little street. He did person. not stop, however, but went on, scarcely turning his head right or left; he did not want to see or to be seen. But when he | reached the solicitor's office the chief was

It was a bitter pill to Gilbert to return to Knowlton in his present circumstances; but in such a sea of troubles as his, "what

out, sent for in a hurry to make a will, and | come," muttered Gilbert, as he seized an the young client found little comfort trom oar and pushed off. the second in command.