FIVE YEARS OF IT.

5

པ་?

her sex, I care not whether they be in years eighteen or eighty, or any age between these extreme periods-whether they be dressed in purple and fine linen, or wear the coarsest serge, Betty had an idol-one person whom she placed on a pedestal and worshipped, who could neither think, nor do, nor look wrong. That person was Edgar Huntingdon. She loved to tell how Edgar, when a child, "t' nicest lad that iver came to Afrel," captivated by the scarlet jackets of her donkey-drivers, had begged to remain and be a driver too.

Poor old lady! some years back she had lost her helpmate, her companion, her good man," as she delighted to call him. She had talked of him ever since, and it was not the mere selfish regret and babble of loss. "We niver had a differ," she would say, "for five-and-forty year, all

t' time we were togither." One donkey, called Jessie, being the last "my Nestfield iver bought," was the particular object of Betty's affection. She never let it go "wintering" on the moors, but stabled it and tended it with the most untiring tenderness, reserving its services for the sex which is more gentle to animals, and for Edgar Huntingdon. No other of the less considerate division of the human race had ever mounted, or ever will mount Jessie, I can assure you.

Edgar was standing with the old dame, on the green mound in front of her cottage door, this fine October morning on which this tale naturally commences.

I was going to Glendover," he was saying, "but thought I would look in and see how you and Jessie and the rest of the family were."

sin'

my good man bought Jessie. She'll be eighteen year old come 'fore end o' ChristAy, and Nestfield would ha' been eighty, had he been spared me he would." And she lifted her blue apron to her moist

mas.

and now failing eyes.

"And how old are you, Betty ?" Edgar knew her age as well as his own; but he wished to lead her away from her grief.

"Seventy-eight, honey! seventy-eight— going seventy-nine. Ay, it's a great age. Did I iver tell you how many grand-childre I have? Why, I've twenty-seven, and that's t' youngest on 'em. He's a wild un, too-he is; he goes at such a rate wi' ť donkeys. But I niver let him drive Jessie. No, my good man bought Jessie."

"Well, I must leave you now.

I am

only going to Glendover for the day-goodbye;" and he left her looking after him affectionately, with her usual-"He's t nicest lad that iver came to Afrel."

Six miles farther west, embosomed in a neighbouring valley, lies Glendover, with its dismantled abbey, its glorious woods and glades, through which, narrower but still more picturesque than at Afrel, the silver Scarf winds its fantastic way. Every break in the ruin, every stile, every turn of the river, Edgar knew them all by heart, and loved them as only poets love the sweet sympathizing face of Nature.

Before him was the wonder of his childhood-the waterfall; somehow, it did not seem so high as in younger days departed. He could not but think that the shattered oriel, shaken arch, and weed-grown aisles, resembled the many anticipations of life

destroyed, and the good intentions forfeited; that, like the cascade, hope appeared not so lofty as in earlier days; and that the river, like the stream of sorrow, was the only thing unchanged and unbroken. How long this meditation would have lasted, or into what refinements of contrast proceeded, perhaps they can tell who are in the habit of indulging in similar moods. My hero's moralizing was suddenly interrupted by the discovery that he had nearly walked over somebody, a moment ago unperceived. On his entirely returning to a lucid state, he found to his horror that he had summarily knocked a sketch from the hand of an utter stranger to the ground. He was somewhat reassured by seeing that the face of his new acquaintance wore a smile of simple amusement.

"Pray, pardon my stupid fit of absence,"