nearly cut that useful member to the bone. "Got leave to go, and won't go with me!"

"When you won't try at the plough""Hang the ploughing-match!" ejaculated Maurice, shaking his discomfited finger; "hang the ploughing-match!"

"When you won't try for a prize," continued Phoebe, quietly taking another gosling upon her lap, "you who know that you can plough as straight a furrow as old Giles Dowling himself!"

"Hang Giles Dowling, Phœbe! My father was a farmer, and though, to please him, and since his death to humour mother,

I

may have gone between the stilts, there's no need to let myself down in the eyes of the whole parish. What would that cold, sneering, purse-proud, uncle of mine and his fine daughters say, I wonder? Come, Phoebe, don't look so grave-you 'll go to the Maying, won't you? What can hinder

you, now that you have got leave? Come, and I'll drive you in my own chaise-cart with my new chesnut horse."

"What would your proud uncle and your fine cousins say to that, I wonder? You are a farmer's son, as you truly say, Mr. Maurice Elliott, and I am a labourer's daughter. God forbid that I should be ashamed of being the child of an honest man, let his condition be ever so poor!" and Phoebe, though her tone was gentle, drew her stool a little back with an air of self-respect that approached to dignity. Her lover felt the reproof.

"Forgive me, dearest Phoebe! pray, pray forgive me! I did not intend—I did not dream-oh! Phoebe, I never think of you but as one so much better than myself! You do forgive me then ?" said he, answering the bright dimpled smile which required no words to confirm her pardon. "You do forgive me, and you'll

let me drive you to this Maying? We are to have a cricket-match and a dance,

and it will be so pretty a sight! Why do you shake your head? Is there any

secret in the matter ""

"No secret at all, Maurice," said Phœbe. "I'll tell you the truth; you'll not be ashamed of it, though your fine cousins would. Poor uncle George has been so ill this spring that he has not been able to get his allotment dug or planted, and you know the allotment ground is his chief dependence. The children would be half starved without the vegetables, and the refuse keeps the pig. So father and mother are going to give him a day's labour to get in the potatoes, and I'm going to help. That's my holyday, and a very happy one it will be. Uncle George was always so good to me, and so was aunt, and I love the children dearly. You'll see what a day's work I shall do."

"Dear, good Phoebe! I wish I could help too; only I have promised to make

one of the eleven, and I can't desert them just at last. But I'll tell you what I can do. Your little cousin George, who lives with us, I can let him go home and help." Another bright smile repaid the kind

ness.

"But this ploughing-match, Maurice! that will be a pretty sight too! And you, who can do everything better than the other lads of the parish, why should not you be as proud of being the best ploughman as the best cricketer or the best shot? Nay, but you must listen to me, Maurice: whatever the purse-proud uncle or the fine cousins may say, I have good cause to believe that your trying for the prize would please one person besides myself—your own good landlord, Colonel Lisle.”

Maurice's brow darkened. He drew

up

his person to his full stature and spoke angrily and bitterly

Would you

"My own good landlord! Would

believe, Phoebe, that after living upon his estate, I and my fathers, these three hundred years and more, paying his rent to a day, and doing as much justice to his land as if it were really our own, this good landlord of ours, the lease being upon the point of expiring, has sent us notice to quit? actually sent us notice to quit !" He turned away in proud and angry sorrow. "Notice! but has any one taken the farm ?" inquired Phoebe.

"Not yet, I fancy; but he will find no difficulty in letting it. The lands lie close to my uncle's, and I have sometimes thought at all events we have notice." "But for what reason ?"

"Oh! your rich landlord can easily find a reason for ridding himself of a poor tenant. The message was civil enough as regarded mother. If she had wished to remain in the farm he would have had no