it!
Hurrah! for the hay-waggon! I saw the horses coming out!'

And off he went again full drive; and Alfred did nothing worse than give
a little groan.

Ellen had enough to do in wondering about Mr. Cope. News seemed to
belong of right to the post-office, and it was odd that he should have
preached on Sunday, and now it should be Tuesday, without anything having
been heard of him, not even from Miss Jane; but then the young lady had
been fluttered by the strange boy, and Alfred had been so fretful, that
it might have put everything out of her head.

Friarswood was used to uncertainty about the clergyman. The Rector had
fallen into such bad health, that he had long been unable to do anything,
and always hoping to get better, he had sent different gentlemen to take
the services, first one and then another, or had asked the masters at
Ragglesford to help him; but it was all very irregular, and no one had
settled down long enough to know the people or do much good in visiting
them. My Lady, as they all called Lady Jane, was as sorry as any one
could be, and she tried what she could do by paying a very good school-
master and mistress, and giving plenty of rewards; but nothing could be
like the constant care of a real good clergyman, and the people were all
the worse for the want. They had the church to go to, but it was not
brought home to them. The Rector had been obliged at last to go abroad,
one of the Ragglesford gentlemen had performed the service for the
ensuing Sundays, until now there seemed to be a chance that this new
clergyman was coming to stay.

This interested Alfred less than his sister. His curiosity was chiefly
about the strange lad; and when he was moved to his place by the window
he turned his eyes anxiously to make him out in the line of hay-makers,
two fields off, as they shook out the grass to give it the day's
sunshine. He knew them all, the ten women, with their old straw bonnets
poked down over their faces, and deep curtains sewn on behind to guard
their necks; the farm men come in from their other work to lend a hand,
three or four boys, among whom he could see Harold's white shirt sleeves,
and sometimes hear his merry laugh, and he was working next to the figure
in brown faded-looking tattered array, which Alfred suspected to belong
to the strange boy. So did Ellen. 'Ah!' she said, 'Harold ye scraped
acquaintance with that vagabond-looking boy; I wish I had warned him
against it, bu