and though he was son to a cattle-dealer of no great reputation, he was a modest, well-behaved young fellow, "a quiet lad" as his father said rather contemptuously; and he made himself so agreeable to Mrs. Broom, who had known and loved his dead mother, that she asked him to look in for tea at the wakes. At last, having long outstayed his time, with his father's future reproaches sounding in his ears, he got up unwillingly to go. He turned when he reached the door, and looked back at Cassandra his mute farewell. The evening sun shone on her tall and noble form and the grand outline of her features which seemed to transfigure the little gray old parlour. "She's like a queen," said poor Roland to himself, humbly. "What am I that she should fancy me?"

The next day was Sunday, and Mrs. Broom was bustling about in her bonnet nearly an hour before it was necessary to start for service.

"We're main proud of our spire," said she, as she panted up the steep path and squeezed with infinite difficulty through the narrow stone openings which serve as stiles, "and it's as pratty a congregation as lives."

As they performed what to Cassandra was the awful ceremony of walking up the middle aisle, many a head turned round to look, and Cassandra in her nervous shyness took the notice which she excited as a reflection on her bonnet, which she perceived by the innate perception of millinery (which after all is only a phase of observation inherent in most women,) was of the wrong shape, and on the rest of her clothes, which she felt certain were of the wrong fashion; and therefore, when she reached her uncle's pew, she sat down in a humiliated state of mind and hid her face gladly. By-and-by the less devout worshippers came in as the clergyman appeared, and she observed Roland Stracey walk into a pew not very far off where, however, she could not see him except by turning her head a little and this only happened once, when her aunt, roused by "the Belief" out of a sleepy fit, knocked down her umbrella and her book and her handkerchief and her spectacles, and Cassandra, in a blinding state of confusion at the commotion and her own grovelling under the bench necessary to recover the property, turned her head the least bit in the world for sympathy towards Roland, and caught his eyes, fixed probably on the preacher (her own head and the pulpit were both in a straight line from him), in which case his strict attention did him the greatest credit.

The old church was grander than anything she had ever seen. There were most original old frescoes representing the Apostles with big staring eyes, and scrolls issuing out of their mouths bearing pious observations, which went sprawling over the chancel arch and roof in a great expenditure of blue, supposed to represent heaven. She thought she had never seen anything so beautiful. Indeed, except that involuntary appeal to Roland, she never once thought of him, but was absorbed in the magnificence about her and the splendour of the music, where three fiddles, a bassoon, and a violoncello were all struggling for the mastery, screeching like mad.

"'Twas like a little heaven below," said poor Cassandra to her aunt, with a glow of delight, as they began to move slowly out with the crowd.

"Look, child," said the old woman, clawing hold of her near the door and dragging her up to a beautiful altar tomb of a recumbent warrior in full armour, with a great two-handed sword by his side. "Yon's one as belongs to your people; they call him Warrior Ashford."

Cassandra did as she was bid, but her attention was disturbed by knowing that Roland had come up just behind her. She did not see him, as she had never turned her head; she had not even heard him, for their acquaintance was of too short a date to enable her to distinguish his footstep, and in the trampling of feet it would have been impossible, and yet she knew it as well as if she had both seen and heard.

"It's a very pretty piece of work," said Roland, not addressing her. "See thee how thoe joints i' th' armour is set, like as if they were natural; I canna think how they done it."

"It's like a many things, if ye set you mind to't you'll find out how, Master Roland," said the old lady, smartly; "and now make haste, Cassie, for I'm clean clammed and drouthed, and I want my dinner. Ye'll not forget to-morrow at tea, Mr. Roland ?"

Now tea is a moveable festival, varying according to the latitude of the country and class. "Genteel" tea may be even as late as half-past six; but Mrs. Broom was not genteel, and her guests were expected so soon after two that not a minute of rest had she or Cassandra from her preparations all that morning.

"Thou'st a lucky hand wi' the butter, I will say that, my wench," said her aunt, admiringly. "Set out the girdle-cakes at top, and the rasps and the honey frae yer feyther, wi' the pikilets."

""Twas Lyddy sent it, aunt Bessie," said Cassandra.

"And the t'a down to draw. To be sure, how dear it do be," the old woman went on, without hearing any tongue but her own.

And in a few minutes after they were ready the little room was as full as the honeycomb itself.

Cassandra was wholly engrossed in serving; indeed it was far more to her taste than sitting grand with her pocket-handkerchief spread upon her lap, pouring her tea solemnly into her saucer. Very deft and handy she was in all her movements, and Roland's eyes followed her up and down, watching the grace there is in doing anything really well.

"You'd be a treasure in the public line," said her uncle, approvingly. "She'll ha' a farm o' her own and plenty to do in it, I take it," answered aunt Bessie, with a toss of her head.

At last old Nathan, after his seventh cup of tea, declared he "couldn't swalla a drop more, and that Cassie mun ha' hers, by'r lady,' mun she." And she sat down at the corner of the side-table while her aunt poured out the last cup of bitter cold decoction, and Roland, in a shamefaced way, at doing work "which only females ought to," brought her the poor remains of the bread-and-butter and cake; but he was almost instantly called away by the demands of "society."

It was a very unsatisfactory day. He had not exchanged a word with

her; and somehow the merrymaking seemed dull, and the time-honoured jokes stupid, as he tried vainly to get near her.

Everything, however, comes at last to an end, even ashire tea; and presently at dusk there was a general move, and shawling and bonneting, and leave-taking, and elaborate thanks at the door-sill, and again at the wicket-gate.

Roland remained behind the rest; he had provided himself with some excuse of business, to be "handy" in case of an opportunity, and he now flung out his grappler, and began on Nathan :-" My father says about the cow-" and he fumbled for a letter in his pocket.

"Keep it till to-morrow, lad; I canna do nought i' th' business line. I'm clean done and wored out wi' pleasuring," answered Nathan, yawning. Roland had emptied the heterogeneous contents of his pocket on a vacant corner of the dresser, and among them lay a white, half-opened rose. A rose does not look the better for being stuffed into a hole with papers and string, and a knife, and a handkerchief; and he looked almost as rueful as his rose.

"I brought it this arternoon," he said, almost angrily, looking at Cassandra, though he could scarcely see her where she stood in the twilight. "And there were so many folk, and it were a rare un, too, as growed o' th' rectory garden-wall."

"Brought the cow! Growed on the rectory wall! Why, the lad's gone clean crazy. Well, well; we'll see about it, sin' wakes is over. Time for all things, man," said old Nathan, who was not in love, and if he ever had been had got over it forty years before; so it was pardonable if he did not interpret its short-hand, or read between the lines of Roland's discourse. But when he was gone out of sight-not a minute beforeCassandra took up the half-dead rose and hid it in her bosom.

In the course of the next few days they met several times, and once at a return tea to Mrs. Broom's great feast. "I saw he was very much in love with her, for he sat by her at dinner, and never spoke a word to her the whole time," was the remark of a very keen observer in a different line of life; and poor Roland gave this proof of his affection very pertinaciously, for he was a modest lad.

At the end of her holiday Cassandra returned home with rather a sinking heart. Old Ashford was so far right that if his daughter was to live entirely at Stone Edge, it was as well that she should not know that the world contained anything more cheerful than that dreary spot. She had been petted and admired and amused, and the contrast was rather overwhelming. At first it was a great delight to communicate all the new world of life she had seen to Lyddy and her brother, though she never mentioned Roland; but as they knew none of the people or places, and could not spur her with intelligent questions, even this pleasure soon failed, and Lyddy sighed a little to see how the brilliant spirits in which she so delighted were sobering down.

CHAPTER III.

A MORNING VISIT.

THE back of the old Hall was the most cheerful part of the place. Our ancestors, even in these exposed spots, seem to have had a curious fear of heat. The halls are generally on the cool side of the hills, and the livingrooms look to the north. The great old kitchen at Stone Edge, however, which stretched right across the house, was bright and pleasant. One high wide-mullioned window looked out on the remains of the Hall garden, with its ruined yew hedges and a straggling rosebush or two. The other side opened on the straw-yard, surrounded by cattle-pens, where flights of wheeling pigeons, hosts of chickens, wallowing ducks and pigs, lived together in picturesque confusion, and quite as much quarrelling and oppression and selfishness were to be seen as in the most civilized community. Cassie's pets were without number,-a milk-white calf, a dog which would dart out at command and bring home a chicken in its mouth unhurt, a cat the sworn friend of the dog, and sundry topknotted hens.

All this was overlooked from a cosy corner in a deep window-seat cut out of the thickness of the great old stone wall, garnished with a faded red cushion, whereon lay two or three tattered hymn-books, an almanack, and Lyddy's Testament carefully done up in a handkerchief-the whole literature of the family. An immense open fireplace, large enough to roast an ox, occupied all the middle space, with seats in the chimney-corner on each side, the objects of great ambition-though, set as they were betwixt a scorching heat below and a tremendous draught overhead up the great funnel of the chimney reaching to the daylight above, it was honourable than comfortable to sit there. Over it, in strange contrast with the strings of onions, the dried herbs and flitches of bacon, were hung a helmet and a gigantic two-handed sword. It must have been worn over "Warrior Ashford's " back, and been drawn over his shoulders, for there seemed no other mode of using it. It was a most formidable weapon, and the only relic left of the great soldier from whom Ashford was descended, -this, and perhaps the big bones which he inherited, though no particle of gentle blood seemed to have descended with them.

It was about a month after the wakes, and the two women had been hard at work all the morning in the cheese-room. It is hard work, but you will see a slight girl turning one heavy cheese after another by knack which a man can hardly lift.

"You're tired, dear heart," said Lydia, looking anxiously and lovingly at Cassie, as she stood rather listlessly leaning against the open doorway in her pink short gown and blue petticoat; a much prettier as well as more convenient dress than the trailing skirts of the present farmers' wives.

"Nay, I'm none tired-I'm only stupid," said she, lifting her arms and resting them on the wall as high as she could above her, for a change,

while she leant her head against them. We only see in the Roman peasant, or a Greek statue, how much of grace in motion and attitude are lost by our civilized woman's dress, which does not allow the arms to move except in one direction.

The kitchen was spotlessly clean-"redded up "-for it was Saturday, every paver adorned with a pattern in chalk; the tables, the pewter, and the china rubbed up to a sort of sparkling purity, scarcely to be seen but in these upland habitations. There was a heap of mending on the little three-legged table in the corner, and Lydia turned to study an uncoɛscionable rent in German's new kytle, that Cassie might not feel the burden of her watching eyes. The cat rubbed unheeded against the girlwho roused herself in a few minutes, however, with a little blush at her own thoughts. "I'll go and pick th' apples," she said. "Feyther says they fa' and dunna rippen; there's summat ma's bad to th' tails."

But she stopped short, and the blush deepened on her face as a young man walked suddenly in at the open door.

"It's Roland Stracey, what I met at my aunt's, mother," said Cassandra shyly. She had never used the word before, but had always called her "Lyddy," first to show her despite and then her love, and it was strange and touching to see her take refuge as it were from her own sensations under the protection of a "mother."

"My feyther have a sent me to see arter a keow, and I thought I'd jist look in at Stone Edge on the way," said the young man, shifting uneasily from one leg to the other.

Now Stone Edge was certainly on the way to no place, except perhaps to heaven, and the word made Lydia look up and turn one keen glance on Cassandra, who stood with crimson cheeks in the corner of the room and gave a glowing look of entreaty in return.

Lyddy had never gone through the process of love-making herself, but it seemed to her a sort of holy and heavenly rite, one to reverence and assist in in a serious and earnest fashion, and her grave and gentle welcome made the young man's heart swell as he took the seat offered him, out of which the cat and dog-who were lying in the closest friendship—were displaced.

"She's quite piert is Bessie Broom," he replied, in answer to questions concerning Nathan and his wife which served to break the awkwardness of the party. Presently, to the great relief of all, the boy German rushed in.

"I've broke my knife!" he cried. "Who's yon?" he went on in surprise; but even the unprecedented event of a stranger at Stone Edge could not keep him off his woes, and in a lamentable voice he went on I sot cuttin' a stick for to take the wapses' nest to-night (they wunna tang now they bite the gooseberries so), and I just laid the knife down, when I saw Daft Davie, as fierce as a maggot, cobbing stones at the new cauf, and I just gied un a shake for to mind un, when he creeps close, whips un up and breaks un wi a laugh like a screech-owl.”