Elizabeth all day for the laundry work either, for though the neighbours be kind enough, they'd get stuffing her up with all sorts of old trade when I wasn't by to look after her."

At that moment Nero, the captain's retriever, began to bark furiously in the yard, as he always did when William left for home in the evening.

"Poppet on a hat and out and see a wow-wow," cried Elizabeth, struggling to get free, so that the rolls of fat on her neck waved like a field of barley in the wind.

Now, Elizabeth was naturally a taciturn child, and her conversational efforts were, therefore, always regarded in the light of masterpieces. The three adults hurried to obey her commands, Mrs. Penrice rushing away for the child's hat and jacket.

"You'll do what I say, Johanna ?" said the captain, jumping Elizabeth in the air.

So, to the accompaniment of Poppet's screams of joy, Johanna was settled in life. She knew the tiddlewink shop would be a success, for "Mrs. Buckingham" had helped most houses in Stoke Michael in their hour of need, and the village was not overpoweringly Pharisaic in its attitude. to anybody's past. For Stoke Michael, as a whole, followed the aphorism, "I speak as I find," being thus wiser in its generation than many children of a wider light.

CHAPTER XXXV

VALLEY SHADOWS

"THE beds be plum, the victuals up to the knocker, and missus's hand as light as a gal's, saving a little heaviness with the pepper-pot," said Heber, giving Tryphena a testimonial of efficiency; "but missus's tongue would curdle the very innerds of an old he-goat. 'Tis more'n mortal man can stomach. Though I commend the feelings of a faymale that knows when her's been well-suited."

It was just at the pleasant time of barley-harvest in the summer of the following year. Standing in the lane outside the farm-steading of Chittleford, Robert Hannaford and Heber faced the field. A south wind was tossing the myriad bearded heads so that none were ever motionless or upright for a moment, but bowing, twisting, swaying and fluttering, their stems offered an untrustworthy support to the white convolvulus that clung to them. For a moment, as the field gave its full-toned susurrus, called the wind among the barley, Roger's grave face flickered into sudden laughter, when he glanced at Heber's long solemn face. As he laughed he glanced back to the entrance of the grey quadrangle of the house, where in the mellow shadow of ancient granite a woman stood in white blouse and dark skirt, shading her eyes with her hand, as she watched the two men. Mary Congden had been admitted to the secret reason of Roger's visit to Heber, and her eyes laughed back in answer to the younger man's glance. For Heber was now serving the Congdens

of Chittleford, instead of Tryphena White, and for the last six months had never so much as crossed the moors and network of lanes that lay between Uppacott and Chittleford. But Tryphena wanted him back so sorely that she was prepared to go to any length, and Roger had been entrusted with the embassy of reconciliation.

"As she said to me," said Roger, his deep voice booming across the summer murmur as pleasantly to Mary Congden's ears as ever a man's did, "if she'd had you by she'd never have lost the brindled cow. And now every calving's a terror to her."

"Ay, lost her nerve, poor sawl," said Heber, purringly, "and lost the brindled, too-tchu, tchu, tchu. It never ought to ha' been. And a fox ate her two broods o' young ducks, you say. Talking o' ducks," he added, lowering his voice and glancing at Mary, "you never seed such gackums as they be here about cooking. Why, the very sage and onions be so wammicky that it wouldn't bring tears to the eyes of a two-year old." He dropped his arms. deprecatingly, as though the wordless hour had come.

"And," said Roger, giving another turn to the persuasive screw, "the lad she's got now won't get up mornings, till he's been called four times."

"And missus by then neither to hold nor to bind, but I'm glad her knows when her's lost a good thing in yours truly." "But it isn't lost, if you're going back."

"But I bain't going," said Heber, firmly; "not if her was to crook on her pins afore me by the hour together. I tell 'ee her's never been the same woman since little Mrs. Wilmot went and left her. It's my belief the trouble of it struck deep, and it's good if it don't bring her home along churchyard way. A little rip, that little Mrs. Wilmot, so to call her what she rightful was. The sly little cuss, never to let on that she'd one good man a' ready. But what comes

over me is that missus should ha' knowed it all along. Missus-that fair foamed to see so much as a chap arm in crook with his maid!"

"Then, if you won't go back on any other terms," said Roger, disregarding the red-herring of another topic laid across his path by Heber, " on what terms will you go back? For I'm commissioned to get you back some way, even if I've to offer you higher wages, or-but you'll never believe it, when I tell you."

"Pon the Book," said Heber, with a grin, "you look just as solemn as if missus was to ask me to marry her.”

"And that's just what she does ask. She thinks that perhaps it would be best, for then no one could say a word against the two of you living as you've done."

Heber was awed into sudden silence. Then he burst

out

"So that's the upsides of it, is it? I thought her turned me out sudden-like every evening, just when 'twas getting warmish inside by the fire, and I'd barely so much as had my two mugs o' zider."

"And she says you needn't bother to say a word. Just come back and walk in. She'll have the ring ready, and you can toddle down when the banns have been called and there need be nothing said between the two of you. And things can go on the same afterwards as if you'd never been to church."

"That's better now. For 'tis jawing as always gallied me when I've been minded to think upon a faymale. Well, you've put it fair and I dunno but what it's a good notion." Heber drew himself up, ten years younger in his own estimation.

"But," said he as an ultimatum, "if I come back I'll not tramp it. I'll have a carriage from the Green Man; 'twill be as good as a wedding tower."

"And," said Roger, as he joined Mary Congden, "it's never dawned on the old fellow that it'll be a saving to Tryphena, the old vixen, not to have to pay him wages. There isn't a man born that Tryphena wouldn't be upsides with. I'm glad he'll have a bit of a wedding 'tower' in the drive from here to Uppacott. It'll be the one extravagance of his lifetime—I'll take my oath."

"So you've managed to get a good servant from us. Father will not thank you for that," said Mary Congden, laughing.

"Suppose I ask him for something more valuable than that, Mary. Do you think I should get it?"

As they stood together in the quadrangle, where the lozenge-shaped windows gleamed in a thousand facets, they both glanced at the heart-shaped moulding placed over the doorway by the unknown eighteenth-century builder. As Mary did not affect to misunderstand him, but lifted her quiet eyes to his, he went on less deliberately

"You've known me as a boy, and you've known me well the last few months. And you've been very good to me."

She turned away abstractedly and began to pluck the fuchsia bells that grew against the grey wall. They both saw the scene of old Mr. Hannaford's death, where Mary Congden had played the part of daughter. She seemed even now, though she was not at all fanciful, to hear the old man's whisper: "Not for me, O Lord, not for me," even in this sun-warmed, hay-scented stillness. But when Mr. Fearing had drawn near the river the waters were very low, and his clouded soul was free from trouble at the end.

"Do you remember," said Roger, seeing eye for eye with her, "how you sang for father?"

She nodded, remembering her start when the old man cried out: "Mary, you haven't sung for years. Don't you mind the old song you used to sing when I was courting you?