over the steep hill-sides lay an exquisite haze veiling it without hiding anything: it "looked apparelled with celestial light, the glory and the freshness of a dream." But poor Cassie took no comfort in the weather: she looked back with regret to the rainiest day of her visit to Youlcliffe as she went up her hill-side again with a sorrowful longing after the past and a rather sinking heart. Old Ashford was so far right that if his daughter was to live entirely at Stone Edge, it was as well that she should not know that the world contained anything more cheerful than that dreary spot. She had been petted and admired and amused, and the contrast was rather overwhelming. At first it was a great delight to communicate all the new world of life she had seen to Lydia and her brother, though she never mentioned Roland; but as they knew none of the people or places, and could not spur her with intelligent questions, even this pleasure soon failed, and Lydia sighed a little to see how the brilliant spirits in which she so delighted were sobering down.

CHAPTER VI.

A MORNING VISIT.

For there the bonnie lassie lives,
The lassie I luve best ;

There wildwoods grow and rivers flow,
And mony a hill between :

But day and night my fancy's flight
Is ever wi' my dear.-BURNS.

The

THE back of the old Hall was the most cheerful part of the place. Our ancestors, even in these exposed spots, seem to have had a curious fear of heat. halls are generally on the cool side of the hills, and the living-rooms look to the north. The great old kitchen at Stone Edge, however, which stretched right across the house, was bright and pleasant. One high wide-mullioned window looked out on the remains of the Hall garden, with its ruined yew hedges and a straggling rosebush or two. The other side opened on the straw-yard, surrounded by cattlepens, where flights of wheeling pigeons, hosts of chickens, wallowing ducks and pigs, lived together

in picturesque confusion, and quite as much quarrelling and oppression and selfishness were to be seen as in the most civilized community. Cassie's pets were without number,-a milk-white calf, a dog which would dart out at command and bring home a chicken in its mouth unhurt, a cat the sworn friend of the dog, and sundry top-knotted hens.

All this was overlooked from a cosy corner in a deep window-seat cut out of the thickness of the great old stone wall, garnished with a faded red cushion, whereon lay two or three tattered hymnbooks, an almanac, and Lydia's Testament carefully done up in a handkerchief-the whole literature of the family. An immense open fireplace, large enough to roast an ox, occupied all the middle space, with seats in the chimney-corner on each side, the objects of great ambition-though, set as they were betwixt a scorching heat below and a tremendous draught overhead up the great funnel of the chimney reaching to the daylight above, it was more honourable than comfortable to sit there. Over it, in strange contrast with the strings of onions, the dried herbs and flitches of bacon, were hung a helmet and a gigantic twohanded sword. It must have been worn over Warrior Ashford's" back, and been drawn over

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his shoulders, for there seemed no other mode of using it. It was a most formidable weapon, and the only relic left of the great soldier from whom Ashford was descended,—this, and perhaps the big bones which he inherited, though no particle of gentle blood seemed to have descended with them.

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It was about a month after the wakes, and the two women had been hard at work all the morning in the cheese-room. It is hard work, but you will see a slight girl turning heavy cheeses-which a man can hardly lift-one after another by a sort of knack. You're tired, dear heart," said Lydia, looking anxiously and lovingly at Cassie, as she stood rather listlessly leaning against the open doorway in her pink short gown and blue petticoat: a much prettier as well as more convenient dress than the trailing skirts of the present farmers' wives.

"Nay, I'm none tired-I'm only stupid," said she, lifting her arms, and resting them on the wall as high as she could above her, for a change, while she leant her head against them. We only see in the Roman peasant, or a Greek statue, how much of grace in motion and attitude are lost by our civilized woman's dress, which does not allow the arms to move except in one direction.

The kitchen was spotlessly clean-"redded up -for it was Saturday: every paver adorned with a pattern in chalk; the tables, the pewter, and the china rubbed up to a sort of sparkling purity, scarcely to be seen but in these upland habitations. There was a heap of mending on the little three-legged table in the corner, and Lydia turned to study an unconscionable rent in German's new kytle, that Cassie might not feel the burden of her watching eyes. The cat rubbed unheeded against the girl-who roused herself in a few minutes, however, with a little blush at her own thoughts. "I'll go and pick th' apples," she said. "Feyther says they fa' and dunna rippen; there's summat ma's bad to th' tails."

But she stopped short, and the blush deepened on her face as a young man walked suddenly in at the open door.

"It's Roland Stracey, what I met at my aunt's, mother," said Cassandra shyly. She had never used the word before, but had always called her "Lyddy," first to show her despite and then her love; and it was strange and touching to see her take refuge as it were from her own sensations under the protection of a "mother."

"My feyther have a sent me to see arter a keow,