e, in spite of all Hetty's frank cordiality of manner,
felt himself slowly slipping away from the vantage-ground he hoped he
had gained with her. This was the result of two things,--one which he
knew, and one which he did not dream of: the cause which he knew, was a
very simple and evident one, Hetty's constant preoccupation. Hetty was a
very busy woman: what with Raby, the farm, the house, her social
relations with the whole village, she had never a moment of leisure.
Often when Dr. Eben came to the house, he found her away; and often when
he found her at home, she was called away before he had talked with her
half an hour. The other reason, which, if Dr. Eben had only known it,
would have more than comforted him for all he felt he had lost on the
surface, was that Hetty, in the bottom of her heart, was slowly growing
conscious that she cared a great deal about him. No woman, whatever she
may say and honestly mean, can entirely dismiss from her thoughts the
memory of the words in which a man has told her he loves her. Especially
is this true when those words are the first words of love which have
ever been spoken to her. Morning and night, as Hetty came and went, in
her brisk cheery way, in and out of the house and about the farm, she
wore a new look on her face. The words, "I love you with all my heart,"
haunted her. She did not believe them any more now than before; but they
had a very sweet sound. She was no nearer now than then to any impulse
to take Dr. Williams at his word: nothing could be deeper implanted in a
soul than the conviction was in Hetty's that no man was likely to love
her. But she was no longer so sure that she herself could not love.
Vague and wistful reveries began to interrupt her activity. She would
stand sometimes, with her arms folded, leaning on a stile, and idly
watching her men at work, till they wondered what had happened to their
mistress. She lost a little of the color from her cheeks, and the full
moulded lines of her chin grew sharper.

"Faith, an' Miss Hetty's goin' off, sooner'n she's any right to," said
Mike to Norah one day.

"What puts such a notion in your head thin, Mike?" retorted Norah, "sure
she's as foine a crayther as's in all the county, an' foiner too."

"Foine enough, but I say for all that that she's a goin' off in her
looks mighty fast," replied the keen-eyed Mike. "You don't think she'd
be a pinin' for anybody, do you?"

Norah gave a hearty Irish laugh.

"Miss He