eak, and putting a
threshing-flail over his shoulder, said he would be away for a week.
That week ensuing was a quiet one for the inmates of the cottage at
Fornside.

Sim's daughter, Rotha, had about this time become a constant helper at
Shoulthwaite Moss, where, indeed, she was treated with the cordiality
proper to a member of the household. Old Angus had but little sympathy
to spare for the girl's father, but he liked Rotha's own cheerfulness,
her winsomeness, and, not least, her usefulness. She could milk and
churn, and bake and brew. This was the sort of young woman that Angus
liked best. "Rotha's a right heartsome lassie," he said, as he heard
her in the dairy singing while she worked. The dame of Shoulthwaite
loved every one, apparently, but there were special corners in her
heart for her favorites, and Rotha was one of them.

"Cannot that lass's father earn aught without keeping yon sulking
waistrel about him?" asked the old dalesman one day.

It was the first time he had spoken of Wilson since the threatened
ducking. Being told of Wilson's violence to Rotha, he only said, "It's
an old saying, 'A blate cat makes a proud mouse.'" Angus was never
heard to speak of Wilson again.

Nature seemed to have meant Rotha for a blithe, bird-like soul, but
there were darker threads woven into the woof of her natural
brightness. She was tall, slight of figure, with a little head of
almost elfish beauty. At milking, at churning, at baking, her voice
could be heard, generally singing her favorite border song:--

"Gae tak this bonnie neb o' mine,
That pecks amang the corn,
An' gi'e't to the Duke o' Hamilton
To be a touting horn."

"Robin Redbreast has a blithe interpreter," said Willy Ray, as he
leaned for a moment against the open door of the dairy in passing out.
Rotha was there singing, while in a snow-white apron, and with arms
bare above the elbows, she weighed the butter of the last churning
into pats, and marked each pat with a rude old mark. The girl dropped
her head and blushed as Willy spoke. Of late she had grown unable to
look the young man in the face. Willy did not speak again. His face
colored, and he went away. Rotha's manner towards Ralph was different.
He spoke to her but rarely, and when he did so she looked frankly into
his face. If she met him abroad, as she sometimes did when carrying
water from the well, he would lift her pails in his stronger hands
over the stile, and at suc