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It was too late when Mother Carke reached her home to look for a visit from Laura Silver Bell that day.

About three o’clock next afternoon, Mother Carke was sitting knitting, with her glasses on, outside her door on the stone bench, when she saw the pretty girl mount lightly to the top of the stile at her left under the birch, against the silver stem of which she leaned her slender hand, and called,

“Mall, Mall! Mother Carke, are ye alane all by yersel’?”

“Ay, Laura lass, we can be clooas enoo, if ye want a word wi’ me,” says the old woman, rising, with a mysterious nod, and beckoning her stiffly with her long fingers.

The girl was, assuredly, pretty enough for a “lord” to fall in love with. Only look at her. A profusion of brown rippling hair, parted low in the middle of her forehead, almost touched her eyebrows, and made the pretty oval of her face, by the breadth of that rich line, more marked. What a pretty little nose! what scarlet lips, and large, dark, long-fringed eyes!

Her face is transparently tinged with those clear Murillo tints which appear in deeper dyes on her wrists and the backs of her hands. These are the beautiful gipsy-tints with whi
ch the sun dyes young skins so richly.

The old woman eyes all this, and her pretty figure, so round and slender, and her shapely little feet, cased in the thick shoes that can’t hide their comely proportions, as she stands on the top of the stile. But it is with a dark and saturnine aspect.

“Come, lass, what stand ye for atoppa t’ wall, whar folk may chance to see thee? I hev a thing to tell thee, lass.”

She beckoned her again.

“An’ I hev a thing to tell thee, Mall.”

“Come hidder,” said the old woman peremptorily.

“But ye munna gie me the creepin’s” (make me tremble).”I winna look again into the glass o’ water, mind ye.”

The old woman smiled grimly, and changed her tone.

“Now, hunny, git tha down, and let ma see thy canny feyace,” and she beckoned her again.

Laura Silver Bell did get down, and stepped lightly toward the door of the old woman’s dwelling.

“Tak this,” said the girl, unfolding a piece of bacon from her apron, “and I hev a silver sixpence to gie thee, when I’m gaen away heyam.”

They entered the dark kitchen of the cottage, and the old woman stood by the door, lest their conference should be lighted on by surprise.

“Afoore ye begin,” said Mother Carke (I soften her patois), “I mun tell ye there’s ill folk watchin’ ye. What’s auld Farmer Lew about, he doesna get t’ sir” (the clergyman) “to baptise thee? If he lets Sunda’ next pass, I’m afeared ye’ll never be sprinkled nor signed wi’ cross, while there’s a sky aboon us.

“Agoy! “exclaims the girl, “who’s lookin’ after me?”

“A big black fella, as high as the kipples, came out o’ the wood near Deadman’s Crike, just after the sun gaed down yester e’en; I knew weel what he was, for his feet ne’er touched the road while he made as if he walked beside me. And he wanted to gie me snuff first, and I wouldna hev that; and then he offered me a gowden guinea, but I was no sic awpy, and to bring you here to-night, and cross the candle wi’ pins, to call your lover in. And he said he’s a great lord, and in luve wi’ thee.”

“And you refused him?”

“Well for thee I did, lass,” says Mother Carke.

“Why, it’s every word true! “cries the girl vehemently, starting to her feet, for she had seated herself on the great oak chest.