her lounging attitude, placed her hands behind her and there re-folded them, and stood waiting, with an added flush of colour on her cheek. The new-comer strode along in a kind of awkward resoluteness, looking straight at the girl with a glance which appeared to embarrass her a little, though she returned it frankly enough.

'Here I am, you see,' said the new-comer, halting before her.

He was tallish, well-made, and of middle age. His expression was a trifle dogged, and for a man who came love-making he looked less prepossessing than he himself might have wished.

'Good afternoon, Mr. Thistlewood,' said the girl, in a tone which a sensitive man might have thought purposely defensive.

'Is it yes or no to-day, Bertha?' asked Mr. Thistlewood.

'It has always been no,' she answered, looking down.

'Oh,' he answered, 'I'm perfectly well aware of that. It always has been no up till now, but that's no reason why it should be no to-day. And if it's no to-day that's no reason why it should be no again this day three months. Maids change their minds, my dear.'

'It is a pity you should waste your time, Mr. Thistlewood,' said Bertha, still looking down.

'As for wasting my time,' returned John Thistle-wood, 'that's a thing as few can charge me with as a general rule. And in this particular case, you see, I can't help myself. The day I see you married I shall make up my mind to leave you alone until such time as you might happen to be a widow, and if that should come to pass I should reckon myself free to come again.'

'It has always been no,' said Bertha. 'It is no to-day. It will always be no.'

The words in themselves were sufficiently decisive, and the voice, though it had something soft and regretful in it, sounded almost as final as the words.

'Let's look at it a bit, my dear,' said John Thistle-wood, grasping in both hands the thick walking-stick he carried, and pressing it firmly against his thighs as he leaned a little forward and looked down upon her. 'Why is it no? And if it's no again to-day, why is it always going to be no?'

'I like you very well, Mr. Thistlewood,' she answered, looking up at him, 'but I don't like you in a marrying way, and I never shall.'

'As for never shall,' said he, 'that remains to be seen.'

He straightened himself as he spoke, and releasing the walking-stick with his left hand put the point of it softly, slowly, and strongly down upon the gravel, dinting the ground pretty deeply with the pressure.

'Let's look at it a little further,' he added.

'It is of no use,' the girl answered pleadingly. 'It hurts us both, and it can do no good at all.'

'Let's look at it a bit further,' he said again. 'This day month you said there was nobody you'd seen you liked better than me. Is that true still?'

'It is quite true,' she answered, 'but it makes no difference.'

'That remains to be seen,' said John Thistlewood again. 'And as for not liking me in a marrying way, that's a thing a maid can't be supposed to know much of.' He waited doggedly as if to hear her deny this, but she made no answer. 'You've known me all your life, Bertha, and you never knew anything again me.'

'Never,' she said, almost eagerly.

'I'm well-to-do,' he went on stolidly, but with all his force, as if he were pushing against a wall too heavy to be moved by any pressure he could bring to bear against it, and yet was resolute to have it down. 'I'm not too old to be a reasonable match for a maid of your years. You've had my heart this five years I waited two afore I spoke at all There's a many—not that I speak it in a bragging way—as would be willing enough to have me.'

'It's a pity you can't take a fancy to one of them,' she said, with perfect simplicity and good faith.

'Perhaps it is,' answered Thistlewood, with a dogged sigh; 'but be that as it may, I can't and shan't. Where my fancy lies it stays. I didn't give my heart away to take it back again. You'll wed me yet, Bertha, and when you do you'll be surprised to think you didn't do it long before.'

At this point the voice of a third person broke in upon the colloquy.

'That caps all!' said the voice. 'There's Mr. Forbes, the Scotch gardener at my Lord Barfield's, tells me of a lad in his parts as prayed the Lord for a good consate of himself. That's a prayer as you'll never find occasion t'offer, John Thistlewood.'

'Maybe not, Mrs. Fellowes,' answered Thistlewood, addressing the owner of the voice, who remained invisible; 'but I wasn't speaking in a braggart way.'

'No—no,' returned the still invisible intruder. 'Wast humble enough about it, doubtless. You'm bound to tek a man's own word about his own feelings. Who is to know 'em if he doesn't?'

'Just so,' said Thistlewood, with great dryness. He appeared to be little if at all disturbed by the interruption, but Bertha was blushing like a peony.

'I sat quiet,' said the girl's mother, leisurely walking round the door with a half-finished gray worsted stocking depending from the knitting-needles she carried in both hands,—' I sat quiet so as not to be a disturbance. It's you for making love to a maid, I must allow, John.'

The girl ran into the house and disappeared from view.

'It's me for speaking my mind, at least, ma'am,' returned John, with unaltered tranquil doggedness.

'Ah!' responded the farmer's wife; 'you're like a good many more of 'em; you'd sooner not have what you want than go the right way to get it.'

Thistlewood digested this in silence, and Mrs. Fellowes set the knitting-needles flashing.

'I've always fancied,' he said in a little while, 'as I had your goodwill in the matter.'

'You've got my goodwill, in a way to be sure,' said the old woman. 'You'd mek the gell a goodish husband if her could find a fancy for you—but the fancy's everything—don't you see, John?'

'I'm not above taking advice, Mrs. Fellowes,' said Thistlewood, digging at the gravel with his walking-stick. 'Will you be so good as to tell me where I'm wrong?'

'There's one particular as you're wrong in,' returned Mrs. Fellowes, knitting away with a determinedly uninteresting air, 'and, I misdoubt me, you can't alter it.'

'What's that?' asked Thistlewood, looking up at her suddenly.

'You're the wrong man, John.'

'That remains to be seen,' he answered, with the same dogged patience as before.

'You can't win a maid's heart by going at her as solemn as a funeral,' pursued the old woman. 'If you'd ha' begun sprightly with the gell, you might ha' had a chance with her. "La!" says you, "what a pretty frock you're a-wearing to-day;" or "How nice you do do up your hair for a certainty."'

'I don't look on marriage as a thing to be approached i' that fashion,' said Thistlewood.

'Well,' returned the old woman, clicking her needles with added rapidity, 'I've always said there's no end to the folly o' men. D'ye hear that there cuckoo? Go and catch him wi' shoutin' at him. An' when next you're in want of toast at tay-time, soak your bread in a pan o' cold water.'

Thistlewood stood for a time in a rather dogged-looking silence, sometimes glancing at the notable woman and glancing away again. Her eye expressed a triumph which, though purely dialectic, was hard for a disappointed lover to endure, even whilst he refused to recognise his disappointment.

'I should regard any such means of gettin' into a maid's good graces as being despisable,' he said, after a while.

'Very well, my Christian friend,' the farmer's wife retorted, with a laugh. 'Them as mek bread without barm must look to spoil the batch.'

'I was niver of a flatterin' turn of mind,' said Thistlewood.

'You niver was, John,' responded Mrs. Fellowes, with an accent which implied something beyond assent.

He flushed a little, and began to tap at his corduroyed leg with the stick he carried, at first with a look of shamefaced discomfiture, and then with resolution. He finished with a resounding slap, and