don't know what folks gets married for, t' ain't been no sort o' luck to me as I ever see'd. But dear Miss Maud, bless her, to think of her lookin' so beautiful an' sweet, wi' trouble at her heart as she has." "Mrs. Benn, it ain't no ways clear to me, but what she kind o' sees him round her in a sort o' way. She's had a strange like look wi' her eyes ever sin' t' dear master was took, as if she was a seein' summut as other folks couldn't. It's allers been on my mind that some people has visions, kind o' dreams ye see, as makes them peaceful an' sweet like. I sure if t'angels has faces at all, an' I hope they have, they'll be summut like Miss Maud's, wi' sich a shine an' glint. I hope t' other young leddy 'll do well wi' this strange gentleman. I don't much matter folks myself as looks so proud and stiff upright; but some likes one thing an' some another, and there ain't no tellin' what suits. Nobbut she loves him, they'll get along somehow nor other." "An' she does that, Mrs. Brant, my word on it. It ain't on my track to go peepin' and spryin' round of other folk's faces; but it goes hard if she ain't been a thinkin' on him this good bit past. Ye mind that Sunday mornin' he preached here October was a year, why, she ain't been t' same ever since, she's gotten a new way wi' her, kind o' sweet like at times, just t' same as came over her aunt Miss Miriam, and she was awful proud, ye mind, when she was goin' to be wed to yon gentleman from the west country. Poor thing, an' she got took afore it come about; but that's neither here nor there. An' I've see'd as clear as ever I see'd anything, that Miss Mabel were goin' along t' same track." "I know what it is, Mrs. Brant," continued Polly, stripping the suds from her arms, and giving a flying glance across to Matthew, who was snoring behind the clothes' horse; and then looking hard and fast at the tallow candle standing in its glass bottle on her tub corner. "I know what it is, Mrs. Brant. I know t' time when I was nigh hand gettin' t' same sort o' thing myself, afore I took up wi' him, when Mark Ranner, bodkin Mark they used to call him, 'cause he was so small like, 66 lived parish schoolmaster here. I could ha' lifted him up in yon clothes' basket, he was nobbut such a little un, but there was a vast o' summut in him as made folks take a good bit o' time to consider afore they did ought to cross him, an' he had a sort o' way wi' him just like a prince, as nobody dare go agin. And he kind o' made me feel as humble and gentle like, and we was a goin' to be wed. And I mind as well as can be, I read it all through in t' Prayer-book a month afore t' day, an' when I came to that piece about obeyin', I kind o' stuck fast for a minnit, for ye see I'd never said that to no person. Well, next day it were Sunday, an' my missis allers let him come home wi' me from church of a Sunday night, an' we had a bit of a joke about this here obeyin', an' I said I warn't goin' for to do it, and from jokin' we got to jawin' about it, an' I flew high, an' so did he, for he'd a awful deal o' pride, only he kept it so quiet like. An' I kept gettin' hotter an' hotter, while I said he might go an' take back word about t' banns, for they was goin' to be axed t' next Sunday. An' wi' that he gave me a long look-I've never had but one look like that in all my born days, Mrs. Brant-an' he says, as kind-like, 'Do ye mean it, Polly?' and I flung out at him agin, for I was kind o' riled wi' his quietness, an' I tell'd him I never said nowt as I didn't mean, and left him, for we'd just gotten to t' back door, an' missis didn't let followers come into t' kitchen. I've oft thought since, if he'd had chance to ha' comed in, we'd ha got it made up; but servant gals' troubles ain't no sort o' count wi' missises, an' he were forced to go. An' t' next thing I heerd on him he were gone from t' village back away to t' moors, an' I've never heerd tell on him since. So then I took up wi' yon. He was kind o' soft like, and had no sort o' say of his own; but I didn't care who it was, so long as I got somebody to let t' village folks see I hadn't cared for Mark. But law, Mrs. Brant, he ain't nothing at all to stick to. Folks ought to look out for a sweet bone when they 're goin' to be pickin' at it all their lives, but I've got t' sweetness out o' mine a good bit past, though I never telled no one afore you." When Mrs. Brant had packed up her knitting |