loans were all mixed together in Joshua's version of the affair in inextricable confusion. He had vainly tried to come to some arrangement with the fellow, and remembered particularly the unpleasant look on his face as he said, "You may tell your father as I shall come over soon for a settlement."

"See thee, lad," said his father, coming up behind him suddenly and taking him gently by the shoulder. Fair play's a jewel,-sin' thy mind is so set upo' this lass, if you choose to go in for her and ma' her lend me this money her aunt left her gin yer married, I'm game—tho' it's a poor creatur's daughter to wed wi'. Sammy Ellot's been here again outrageous for's brass, and I dunna know where to turn for some."

"What, refuse Cassie when she'd nought, and offer for her fleece like as if she were a sheep!" said Roland, fiercely, in a tone which he had never used to his father before. "I'm none so base!"

"Well, ye may please yersen, it's your matter more nor mine. The business and a' will fall through an this goes on; but I'm getting an old man, so p'r'aps it dunno sinnify. Why, I'd wed wi' the Devil's daughter if so be she'd money, and bide wi' the old folk an I were you, Roland, and wanted brass as we do now!" said his father, with a grin. And then a little sorry to have shown his cards so plainly, he went on, "And ye was so sore set upo' the lass a while back, and thought no end o' her for a' the fine things under the sun when I were t' other way, and now when I'm come over, ye're so contrairy, like a woman as doesna know her own mind!'

He went out of the room as he spoke, and let the temptation work. It is a very good plan to treat conscientious scruples as if they were mere marks of weakness and indecision; few can help being influenced more or less by the look which their deeds bear in the eyes of others.

CHAPTER XII.

THE DRUID'S STONES.

FOR a few days Roland was firm against the idea; at the end of that time, however, he heard that German had been inquiring for him. He dared not go up to Stone Edge with his bad conscience about him, poor fellow. "She's a rich 'ooman now," he muttered; but he thought there would be no harm in lighting a fire on the rock. "Who knows whether she mightn't look out? The first time nothing came of it, no one had seen his sign; the next night the wind blew out his fire; but the third time German, as he drove the cows home, saw the little pale blue column rising in the still evening air, and went and fetched his sister and lit the return fire. The original signal was suddenly trampled out, and German, as he watched it, pointed this out, and said, with some compunction for his doubts as to Roland's good faith, "He sees ourn, lass; I shouldn't wonder if he'll be here afore long."

Restless and uneasy, she hurried down to the house again to tell Lydia.

"Sit thee down, dear child. Even if he be coming, he canna be up-at the Stones for this hour welly an he had wings."

"Dunna stop me, dear, I canna bide still; let me go up there and wait a bit; 'twill do me good even he dunna come. I feel as if the room were stiflin' o' me." Lydia said no more, but followed her up to the

summit.

It was not often that the winds were still on that exposed point, but this evening there was hardly a breath stirring, as the shadows gradually sank over the magnificent view at their feet. Folds of hill, deep clefts in the rock, open dales with the blue river tracing out its own course, and catching golden reflections on its windings here and there; beyond all, the purple moors, which stretched without a break, it was said, right on over the border.

At the foot of the great dark stones which had seen such strange sights in their youth, grim, grey, and terrible in themselves and their recollections, sat the two women, in perfect silence. Cassie had clasped her arms round her knees and laid her head upon them, till Lydia, in the dumb pain of seeing such self-concentration, lifted it up without speaking, and laid her own head there. The movement broke the spell of silent

grief, and she burst into tears.

Suppose it should be as father and they all says?" she sobbed. "One 'ud think if he'd cared he might ha' come back frae York or sent a' that time I were wi' aunt Bessie; he mun ha' knowed I should be there."

Lydia soothed and petted her. "I'm hoping as he'll soon be here, my darlin', and once ye can see intil each other's eyes mebbe all will be plain." And then in terror lest old Ashford should miss them from their work and come out after them, she whispered, "I'll send German to thee," and went off in haste.

The shadows fell darker and darker as the afterglow departed, but a great bank of magnificent fleecy clouds, heaped in masses many thousand feet high, and tinged with gorgeous sunset hues, moved in stately procession across the valley. The sun set, the earth grew dim, but their lofty eminences caught the rays long after the world was in shadow, till at last their splendid tints died away into a hectic paleness like that of Mont Blanc himself when left by the sun's light.

It was so striking that Cassandra's attention was diverted, and she watched the death-like change as a sort of omen with a deep sigh, when behind her she heard a motion and turned suddenly, for "the Stones had a bad name as an eerie place, though she was fearless of such things at that moment. It was only Roland, out of breath with his rush up the hill.

She sprang up and he seized both her hands, but somehow the thought of the mean bargain he was sent there to drive, threw a constraint over his manner which Cassandra saw immediately and felt keenly.

"I wanted to see yer-to tell yer"-she began, constrainedly too. "Have yer heard, Roland," she added, more naturally, "that my uncle have a paid me the sixty-eight pounds? and I wanted to say that th' ould squire will ha' his back rents, and so feyther mun take it to pay him wi'. You know it were my mother's by right, and so he ought to ha' had it before," she repeated mechanically. "But he'll gie his consent, happen you'll take me without it," said the poor girl with a tearful smile.

"Oh, Cassie! and my father's sent me up to say I may marry thee an thou'lt lend him the money!" groaned Roland, leaving hold of her hands. The poison of mistrust had entered into poor Cassie's soul, and she shivered within herself: "I mun let my own father hae what I hae got," she said aloud gravely.

Nature had endowed Cassandra with a most imperial presence not at all matching the tender heart within, and as she turned away with her majestic manner, repeating, "There's no one else has a right to't," poor Roland's soul sank within him. He had no courage to explain that he knew he could not and ought not to leave his father. It was not so much that it was quite impossible for Joshua to get on at all without some one he could rely on to look after his affairs, and attend to the cattle and horses as they were bought and sold, but that deep in his heart was the conviction that the love of his son was the only tender point in the unscrupulous Joshua's character, and that it kept him from some evil things. Yet such a house could only be bearable to Cassie if she came with his father's full consent; he could not even think otherwise of asking her to live with them. All this trembled on his lips, but found no expression; it sounded to him too bald and cold to put into words, to sacrifice her thus, as it were, to one so little worthy; and poor Cassie, after waiting a moment for him to say more, for the word which she had predetermined must vindicate him from her father's taunt, turned away with the outward selfcontrol which her life of trial had taught her.

"Ye'r not goin' to leave me so," said poor Roland passionately. She turned irresolutely for a moment, and he seized her in his arms and kissed her hands, her shoulders, everything but her lips, fervently; but she drew herself away, when still he said no more, and moved quietly towards German, who was standing waiting for her by the rude stone-wall which fenced in the wild bit of moor-land where stood the Druid's temple, and went off silently into the grey evening.

"She haven't even looked round," said the poor fellow, flinging his arms over his head and turning headlong down the steep hill-side.

Cassandra went straight into the house with a fixed expression in her face which frightened Lydia's anxious heart; but words there were none, and she seemed glad to occupy herself by obeying her father's impatient demands for bread-and-cheese and beer. Only once, as she and Lyddy met in the dark passage that led to the kitchen, she whispered in answer to a loving pressure of her hand,—

"His father sent him to chaffer for the money hissen."

"Not for hissen!"

Lydia's incredulous tone was balm to the poor girl's heart. Later, when each had retired to rest and all the house was still, Lydia crept quietly to the upper chamber where Cassie abode. She had thrown herself, half kneeling half sitting, on a low box at the foot of her little bed, her face hidden on her outstretched arms. Lydia knelt down by her in silence and put her arms round her waist.

"And that he should ha' cared for me only so long as he hoped I'd brass to gie him," she said with a quivering sob.

"I dunnot b'lieve it," said Lyddy.

"Then why didn't he say he'd marr' me, pounds or no pounds?" said poor Cassie, anxious to be contradicted.

"Dear heart, I weren't there, I canna speak to it. Mebbe he canna manage other wi' that old rogue his father. But he'd surely not ha' come nigh thee now an it werena false about the Mitchell lass—and we wunna give up one as has a been good and true till now an we ha' more knowledge nor this. And now get to bed, my darlin'. I munna ha' thee sick." And before she left her she had seen her laid in her little white nest.

But in the middle of the night Lydia rose gently and went to see how her child fared. Her tall white figure looked so spirit-like, in the light which the late moon poured through the low window, that Cassie gave a little cry as she entered.

"Oh, Lyddy dear, I'd a been prayin' so hard that God A'mighty would make all straight and bring us thegether agin, that I'm sure it'll come to pass; it seemed to me as though I'd wrestled and won, and then I thought thee wast the angel happen come to tell me so. Dost thou not think we get what we pray for with all our hearts?"

Lydia's mild eyes were clouded, and as Cassie urged her again, she answered. "Yes, I believe that God gives his blessing on all earnest prayer. Sleep, dearie-take thy rest now."

The next day Cassandra was apparently cheerful and relieved; she went about in the triumph of her belief: but the day after her spirit flagged again, and a restless depression came over her which struck deep into Lydia's heart. In the afternoon, as she sat before the never-ending heap of mending which she generally took on herself-as Cassie "never could abide" sitting still-the poor girl went in and out in a sort of aimless tidying of what was already spotless neatness, as if she could only keep her mind quiet by perpetual motion of her limbs. At last she came and leant over the back of Lydia's chair, so that she might not see the working of her face.

"Lyddy, you b'lieve in prayer?"

"Yes, dearie, or I should lay me down and die."

Nay, I dunna mean that. I mean as how if we pray fervently we git what we ask," she repeated anxiously.

"Dear lass t'other night when thee spoke on't, my thoughts was like

this skein-tangled, and I couldna speak what was in my heart. I think it's o' this wise, but we're poor creeturs to understan' Him as the heavens cannot contain. Mebbe thou didst na heed last Sabbath, i' th' churchyard, Farmer Jones, as is new churchwarden, said as how he'd put up parson to hae a prayer for fine weather-for, says he, 'My sister throwed it at me as they was a prayin' for it at Hassop, and I don't see but how we've as good a right as they has to a prayer.' And young Eliott he ups and says, 'Oh, they're prayin' at Hassop for fine weather, be they? that's because their hay's down. I was wi' my uncle at Toad-i'-th'-Hole last Sabbath 'tain't a mile off t'other side the road—and they was a prayin' for rain, cos theirn's up, and they're such farmers for turmits. How's God A'mighty to serve 'em both, I wonder: rain one side road, shine t' other?' And I thought to myself that even He'd be rare put about to do this and not do it i' th' same place as 'twere. And that it were more like as how He'd just gie um what was right for um, wi'out mindin' what they axed; that what they had to pray for was to be content either way. Seems to me wi' my own baby I'd ha' gi'en him what was right wi'out waiting to be axed, and if he prayed and cried ever so I wouldn't gie him what were wrong for him, and that he ought to trust me to do right by him. Dear heart, don't He know much better nor we what we want? His will, not mine,' said even the greatest. Suppose He gied thee what thee wanted because thee axed, thou'st be 'sponsible as it were, not He. Would thou dare to take thy will so ?"

6

Cassie was silent.

"I've tried it, my dearie, and found what stubble before the wind 'twere. I prayed God for another child-oh, Cassie, how I prayed, and the more I prayed the more miserable I grew; and one morning before light as I sat up in bed and wrestled like Jacob, I saw the words, My grace is sufficient for thee,' writ up as in fire i' th' air (they'd been i' th' chapter I'd read last thing at night, but I didna mark them), and I knew my prayer were answered; but 'twere by the resting of my longing heart, the bendin' o' my will to His, not His to mine."

Cassandra looked down on the pale upturned face and knew that these were no words, but the experience of one purified by fire of affliction; the face was rapt like a saint's. "But then I'm so much older than

thee," she added, with a sad smile.

And Cassie seized her in one of her impulsive passionate embraces and went off without a word. It was difficult indeed to believe that there was only three years' difference between the two: the one with all the overflowing life, the impulse, and rich hopes and imaginations of youth; the other with every wish and thought chastened by sorrow and under strict control. But the greatest contrasts often make the strictest friendships, so long as one is as it were the complement of the other.

Cassie was quieter and better next day, and went about her cheesemaking no doubt cheese is a great help when one is crossed in love. It is much more so, for instance, than lounging in an armchair with some