into the brook, which is running now like a mill stream; they came in an omnibus, and very nearly stuck fast in the middle; it is a mercy they were not all drowned; no thanks to the driver, though.”

“Poor things,” exclaimed the farmer’s wife; “come, I must help you to some dry things, such as they are: and you must stay here to-night; it is not fit for you to go home, indeed it is not,” she added, as Mrs Franklin prepared to decline.

“I’ll make you as comfortable as ever I can. Jane, go and put a fire in the Red-room.”

“Indeed,” said Mrs Franklin, “I can’t think of allowing you to put yourself to all this trouble; besides, our servants will be alarmed when they find us not returning.”

“Leave that to me, madam,” said Mr Tankardew; “I shall sleep at the ‘Wheatsheaf’ to-night, and will take care to send a trusty messenger over to ‘The Shrubbery’ to tell them how matters stand; and Mr Hodges will, I am sure, drive you over in his gig in the morning. Hark how the rain comes down! You really must stop: Mrs Hodges will make you very comfortable.”

With many thanks, but still with considerable reluctance, Mrs Franklin acquiesced in this arrangement. Their hostess then accommodated them with such garments as they needed, and all assembled round the blazing fire. Mr Tankardew had divested himself of a rough top coat, and, looking like the gentleman he was, begged Mrs Hodges to give them some tea.

What a tea that was! Mary, though delicately brought up, thought she had never tasted anything like it, so delicious and reviving: such ham! Such eggs! Such bread! Such cream! Really, it was almost worth while getting the fright and the wetting to enjoy such a meal with so keen a relish.

“They’ve got a famous distillery in this house,” remarked Mr Tankardew when they had finished their tea.

“A famous what?” asked Mrs Franklin, in great surprise.

“Dear me,” said Mary aghast, “I really thought I—”

“Oh! You thought they were teetotalers here: well, you should know that it is a common custom in these parts to put rum or other spirits into the tea, especially when people have company. Now, Hodges and his wife are not content with putting spirits into the tea, but they put them into everything: into their bread, and their ham, and into their eggs.”

Mrs Franklin looked partly dismayed and partly puzzled.

“Yes, it is true, madam. The fact is simply this: the spirits which my good tenants distil are made up of four ingredients—diligence, good temper, honesty, and total abstinence; and that is what makes everything they have to be so good of its kind.”

“I wish we had more distilleries of this kind,” said Mrs Franklin, smiling.

“So do I, madam; but it is a sadly dishonest, unfaithful, and self-indulgent age, and the drink has very much to do with it, directly or indirectly. Here, Sam,” to the farmer and his wife who had just re-entered the kitchen, “do you and your mistress come and draw up your chairs, and give us a little of your thoughts on the subject; there’s nothing, sometimes, so good as seeing with other people’s eyes, specially when they are the eyes of persons who look on things from a different level of life.”

“Why, Mayster Tankardew,” said the farmer, “it isn’t for the likes of me to be giving my opinion of things afore you and these ladies; but I has my opinion, nevertheless.”

“Of course you have. Now, tell us what you think about the young people of our day, and their self-indulgent habits.”

“Ah! Mayster! You’re got upon a sore subject; it is time summut was done, we’re losing all the girls and boys, there’ll be none at all thirty years hence.”

“Surely you don’t mean,” said Mrs Franklin anxiously, “that there is any unusual mortality just now among children.”

“No, no, ma’am, that’s not it,” cried the farmer, laughing: “no, I mean that we shall have nothing but babies and men and women; we shall skip the boys and girls altogether.”

“How do you mean?”

“Why, just this way, ma’am: as soon as young mayster and miss gets old enough to know how things is, they’re too old for the nursery; they won’t go in leading strings; they must be little men and women. Plain food won’t do for ’em; they must have just what their pas and mas has. They’ve no notion of holding their tongues—not they; they must talk with the biggest; and I blames their parents for it, I do. They never think of checking them; they’re too much like old Eli. The good old-fashioned rod’s gone to light the fire with.”

“Ay, and Sam,” broke in his wife, “what’s almost worst of all—and oh! It is a sin and a shame—they let ’em get to the beer and the wine and the spirits: you mustn’t say them nay. Ay, it is sad, it is for sure, to see how these little ones is brought up to think of nothing but themselves; and then, when they goes wrong, their fathers and mothers can’t think how it is.”

“You’re right, wife; they dress their bodies as they like, and eat and drink what they like, and don’t see how Christ bought their bodies for Himself, and they are not their own. Ah! There’ll be an awful reckoning one day. Young people can’t grow up as they’re doing and not leave a mark on our country as it’ll take a big fire of the Almighty’s chastisements to burn it out.”

Mrs Franklin sighed, and Mary looked very thoughtful.

Mr Tankardew was about to speak when a faint halloo was heard above the noise of the storm, which was now again raging without. All paused to listen. It was repeated again, and this time nearer.

“Somebody missed his road, I should think,” said Mr Tankardew.

“Maybe, sir; I’ll go out and see.”

So saying, Sam Hodges left the kitchen, and calling to quiet his dog who was barking furiously, soon returned with a stranger who was dressed in a long waterproof and felt hat, which he doffed on seeing the ladies, disclosing a head of curling black hair. He was rather tall, and apparently slightly made, as far as could be judged; for the wrappings in which he was clothed from head to foot concealed the build of his person.

“Sorry to disturb you,” he said, in a gentlemanly voice. “It is a terrible night, and I’ve missed my way. I ought to have been at Hopeworth by now, perhaps you can kindly direct me.”

“Nay,” said the farmer, “you mustn’t be off again to-night: we’ll manage to take you in: we’ll find you a bed, and you’re welcome to such as we have to eat and drink: it is plain, but it is wholesome.”

“A thousand thanks, kind friends,” replied the other; “but I feel sure that I am intruding. These ladies—”

“We are driven in here like yourself by the storm,” said Mrs Franklin. “I’m sure I should be the very last to wish any one to expose himself again to such a night on our account.”

Mr Tankardew had not spoken since the stranger’s entrance; he was sitting rather in shadow and the new-comer had scarcely noticed him. But now the old man leant forward, and looked at the new guest as though his whole soul was going out of his eyes; it was but for a moment, and then he leant back again. The stranger glanced from one to another, and then his eyes rested for a moment admiringly on Mary’s face—and who could wonder! A sweeter picture and one more full of harmonious contrast could hardly be seen than the young girl with her hair somewhat negligently and yet neatly turned back from her forehead, her dress partly her own and partly the coarser garments of her hostess’s daughter, sitting in that plain old massive kitchen, giving refinement and gaining simplicity, with the mingled glow of health and bashfulness lending a special brilliancy to her fair complexion. This was no ordinary man’s child the stranger saw, and again he expressed his willingness to retire and make his way to the town rather than intrude his company on those