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"He is not had at all.... My poor life and heart, how weak I am!" she moaned, in a relaxed, desultory way, heedless of Liddy's presence. "O, how I wish I had never seen him! Loving is misery for women always. I shall never forgive God for making me a woman, and dearly am I beginning to pay for the honour of owning a pretty face." She freshened and turned to Liddy suddenly.

To picture the growth of love in such a girl's heart is like describing the shades of color in a rose, or the expression of affection in the eyes of a dog, and equally impossible. Liddy's home was one of the substantial, old-time kind, with tall pillars in front, a double piazza and wide hall, where stood an ancient clock of solemn tick.

"Oh no. But everybody else was noticing you; and it was odd he didn't. There, 'tis like him. Rich and gentlemanly, what does he care?" Bathsheba dropped into a silence intended to ex- press that she had opinions on the matter too abstruse for Liddy's comprehension, rather than that she had nothing to say. "Dear me I had nearly forgotten the valentine I bought yesterday." she exclaimed at length.

The sharp outlines of the buildings were softened by the moonlight, and the bold formation of the Blue Hills, vague and indistinct. The near-by brook, as of yore, sparkled like silver coin, and the landscape was bathed in mellow light. As Liddy's face was turned toward him, a ray of moonshine fell upon it, and her eyes seemed to fill with a new tenderness.

Duc, with a rough gentleness, wiped off the blood and put the whisky-and-herbs to the sick man's lips, saying, in a fatherly way: "For why you do like that? You're a fool, Jimmy!" "I be, I be," said the old man in a whisper, and let his hand rest on Duc's shoulder. "I'll fix the bread sweet next time, Jimmy." "No, no," said the husky voice peevishly. "She'll do it Liddy'll do it. Liddy's comin'."

For awhile, however, all bade fair to progress favorably between the young people, some letters even had been exchanged between them, when one day Miss Hartney came sailing into the library with a covert light of triumph in her little piercing eyes, with the announcement to your mother, her father and myself, who were seated around the table with our different occupations, that she was 'going off for a few days, to Aunt Liddy's, and wanted to know whether we had 'any messages to send?

Once, when I had gone to Miss Liddy's house, I had found Ellen in a skirt fashioned of an old plaid shawl of her father's, her bare shoulders wound in the rosy "nubia" that had been her mother's, and she was dancing in the dining-room, with surprising grace, as Pierrette might have danced in Carnival, and singing, in a sweet, piping voice, an incongruous little song:

Th' singers fell out wi' th' players. They mostly dun do. An' th' players did everything they could to plague th' singers. They're so like. But yo' may have a like aim, Nanny, what mak' o' harmony they'd get out o' sich wark as that. An' then, when Joss o' Piper's geet his wage raise't five shillin' a year Dick o' Liddy's said he'd ha' moor too, or else he'd sing no moor at that shop.

"Now we'll walk about again." she said. They wandered about the wood for nearly two hours, Bathsheba replying in monosyllables to Liddy's prattle, for her mind ran on one subject, and one only. She interrupted with "l wonder if Fanny is gone by this time?" "I will go and see."

Why didn't he stop at the gate? Lord! 'Tis a gentleman! I see the top of his hat." "Be quiet!" said Bathsheba. The further expression of Liddy's concern was con- tinued by aspect instead of narrative. "Why doesn't Mrs. Coggan go to the door?" Bath- sheba continued. Rat-tat-tat-tat, resounded more decisively from Bath- sheba's oak.