and, therefore, could not take any payment; perhaps he would be
pleased to wait a few minutes for her father's return. It seemed to
Peregrine as if the unworthy metal melted into one lump in his hand,
and he pocketed the gold again, much faster than he had brought it out.
Upon his seating himself mechanically in the broad arm-chair, the
maiden reached after her own seat, and from instinctive politeness he
jumped up to fetch it, when, instead of the chair, he caught hold of
her hand, and, on gently pressing the treasure, he thought he felt a
scarcely perceptible return.

"Puss, puss, what are you doing?" suddenly cried Rose, breaking from
him, and picking up a skein of thread, which the cat held between her
fore-paws, beginning a most mystical web.

Peregrine was in a perfect tumult, and the words "Oh, princess!"
escaped him without his knowing how it happened. The maiden looked at
him in alarm, and he cried out in the softest and most melancholy tone,
"My dearest young lady!" Rose blushed, and said with maiden
bashfulness, "My parents call me Rose; pray, do the same, my dear Mr.
Tyss, for I too am one of the children, to whom you have shown so much
kindness, and by whom you are so highly honoured."

"Rose!" cried Peregrine, in a transport. He could have thrown himself
at her feet, and it was only with difficulty that he restrained
himself.

Rose now related--as she quietly went on with her work--how the war had
reduced her parents to distress, and how since that time she had lived
with an aunt in a neighbouring village, till a few weeks ago, when upon
the death of the old lady, she had returned home.

Peregrine heard only the sweet voice of Rose, without understanding the
words too well, and was not perfectly convinced of his being awake,
till Lemmerhirt entered the room, and gave him a hearty welcome. Soon
after the wife followed with the children, and as thoughts and feelings
are strangely blended in the mind of man, it happened now that
Peregrine, even in the midst of all his ecstasy, suddenly recollected
how the sullen Pepusch had blamed his presents to this very family. He
was particularly delighted to find that none of the children had made
themselves ill by his gifts, and the pride with which they pointed to a
glass case, where the toys were shining, proved that they looked upon
them as something extraordinary, never perhaps to recur. The Thistle,
in his ill-humour, was quite mistaken.

"Oh, Pepusch!" sai