at's just what father says, Sir," answered the young girl, quietly.
"But when things have happened so long ago--before one was born--they
don't come home to one quite so strong, you see. Father keeps not only
his old gratitude, but his old tastes. He cares more for mines and
machinery and such like than for any thing else; he is a better mechanic
than any in Turlock, where I have just been to the watch-maker's to get
him some steel springs. You should see the locks he makes, and the rings
he turns. He will be so pleased if you ask him to show them to you."

"I shall certainly ask him to do so, if I get the chance," said Richard,
eagerly. "Is that your house with the pretty garden?"

"No, Sir; that's the parson's. Nobody can get flowers to grow as he
does. The next house at the top of the hill is ours."

"Why, I thought that would be the inn!" exclaimed Richard, looking at
the little white-washed house, with its sign-board, or what seemed to be
such, swinging in the rising breeze.

"It _is_ the inn," said his companion, quietly, but not without a
roguish smile. "Father keeps the _Gethin Castle_, although he has many
other trades."

"And is that he, at the door yonder?" inquired Richard, pointing to a
tall, thick-set man of middle age, who was standing beneath the little
portico, with a pipe in his mouth.

"No, Sir, that is not father," replied the girl, with sudden gravity;
"that is Solomon Coe."

CHAPTER XII.

A PERILOUS CLIMB.

"Is father in?" inquired the young girl of Solomon, as he stood in the
doorway, without moving aside to let Richard pass into the house.

"No, he is not," returned the person addressed, his keen blue eye fixed
suspiciously on the stranger. "As you were so long on your errand, he
gave up his lock-work, and has gone off to the pit. He said he had never
known you loiter so."

"I did not loiter at all," returned the maiden, indignantly; "if it had
not been for the fog, I should have been home an hour ago; but one can't
walk through wool as if it were air. You had the fog here yourselves,
hadn't ye?"

It was strange to note the change in the girl's speech; not only were
her air and tone quite different from what they had been--her modesty or
shyness exchanged for a confidence and even a touch of defiance--but her
phraseology had become blunt and provincial.

"Well, any way he was angered, Harry," returned Solomon, "until I told
him of the new copper lode, as I whispered to you