th for an instant, and to her alarm Dick, after
dropping his fork and brushing his forehead as a reason, flung down his
own left hand, overlapping a third of Fancy's with it, and keeping it
there. So the innocent Fancy, instead of pulling her hand from the trap,
settled her eyes on her father's, to guard against his discovery of this
perilous game of Dick's. Dick finished his mouthful; Fancy finished her
crumb, and nothing was done beyond watching Geoffrey's eyes. Then the
hands slid apart; Fancy's going over six inches of cloth, Dick's over
one. Geoffrey's eye had risen.

"I said Fred Shiner is a nice solid feller," he repeated, more
emphatically.

"He is; yes, he is," stammered Dick; "but to me he is little more than a
stranger."

"O, sure. Now I know en as well as any man can be known. And you know
en very well too, don't ye, Fancy?"

Geoffrey put on a tone expressing that these words signified at present
about one hundred times the amount of meaning they conveyed literally.

Dick looked anxious.

"Will you pass me some bread?" said Fancy in a flurry, the red of her
face becoming slightly disordered, and looking as solicitous as a human
being could look about a piece of bread.

"Ay, that I will," replied the unconscious Geoffrey. "Ay," he continued,
returning to the displaced idea, "we are likely to remain friendly wi'
Mr. Shiner if the wheels d'run smooth."

"An excellent thing--a very capital thing, as I should say," the youth
answered with exceeding relevance, considering that his thoughts, instead
of following Geoffrey's remark, were nestling at a distance of about two
feet on his left the whole time.

"A young woman's face will turn the north wind, Master Richard: my heart
if 'twon't." Dick looked more anxious and was attentive in earnest at
these words. "Yes; turn the north wind," added Geoffrey after an
impressive pause. "And though she's one of my own flesh and blood . . .
"

"Will you fetch down a bit of raw-mil' cheese from pantry-shelf?" Fancy
interrupted, as if she were famishing.

"Ay, that I will, chiel; chiel, says I, and Mr. Shiner only asking last
Saturday night . . . cheese you said, Fancy?"

Dick controlled his emotion at these mysterious allusions to Mr.
Shiner,--the better enabled to do so by perceiving that Fancy's heart
went not with her father's--and spoke like a stranger to the affairs of
the neighbourhood. "Yes, there's a great deal to be said upon the power
of mai