arsonage garden gathering plums from the wall.

The garden-door was on the latch, it needed but to raise it, and
Mistress Mary Jones walked in. Betty went eagerly forward to meet her
with out-stretched hands. No welcome could be more cordial than that
which Betty Ives gave to her friends.

"I am so glad to see you, Mary? and are you well? Have you lost your
headache?"

Miss Mary sank into a garden-seat and sighed, still retaining the hand
of her friend.

"I am better, sweet Bet," she said; "but my nerves will not recover the
shock for years! No, no! do not shake your head and smile; if you had
the crawlings up the back that I experience, and the creepings down the
spine, and the shaking of knees, the twittering of the lips, and
quivering of the eyelids--"

"Enough, enough!" cried Betty. "Thank Heaven, I am not tormented thus!
My dear Mary, how can you survive such a multitude of ailments?"

"I have survived worse!" she answered, shuddering. "I survived the shock
itself."

"Were you very much frightened?" asked Betty in a tone of interest.

"Frightened! I was terrified. I have not nerve like yours. The dark, the
shot! the dark faces, the loud voices, the ... ah!"

Seeing Mary's chest beginning to heave, Betty thought it high time to
change the subject. "We will not recall it," she said hastily. "Let us
think on more agreeable topics. My father rode into Wancote this
morning, to stroll about the marketplace and hear the news."

"And why did you not go?"

"Because," answered Betty, "I have been making preserves the livelong
day. Up at six this morning, for Dame Martha told me that, owing to my
putting it off so long, the fruit was beginning to rot, so there was no
time to lose."

"I leave preserving to my woman," said Mary. "The hanging over the fire
is ruin to the finest skin."

"Yes, my face is scorched and heated," answered Betty, turning a cheek
like a peach to her friend. "But after all, to so weather-beaten a maid
as myself, up and out in all seasons, a scorched cheek, more or less,
signifies not; and Dame Martha works hard."

"And had your father any news from Wancote?"

"Yes, news indeed--Belton has been taken!"

"Taken?"

"Hired or purchased by a gentleman of the name of Johnstone, whose
arrival is expected hourly."

"This is news indeed! None but a rich man could have paid the price
asked."

"His horses have arrived," went on Betty. "Only four of them as yet, but
each one of the four of