ing of putting the question as to giving out the banns that very
week.

'"Unity," says he, as mild as he could, "here's Milly coming. Now I
shall catch it mightily if she sees 'ee riding here with me; and if you
get down she'll be turning the corner in a moment, and, seeing 'ee in the
road, she'll know we've been coming on together. Now, dearest Unity,
will ye, to avoid all unpleasantness, which I know ye can't bear any more
than I, will ye lie down in the back part of the waggon, and let me cover
you over with the tarpaulin till Milly has passed? It will all be done
in a minute. Do!--and I'll think over what we've said; and perhaps I
shall put a loving question to you after all, instead of to Milly.
'Tisn't true that it is all settled between her and me."

'Well, Unity Sallet agreed, and lay down at the back end of the waggon,
and Tony covered her over, so that the waggon seemed to be empty but for
the loose tarpaulin; and then he drove on to meet Milly.

'"My dear Tony!" cries Milly, looking up with a little pout at him as he
came near. "How long you've been coming home! Just as if I didn't live
at Upper Longpuddle at all! And I've come to meet you as you asked me to
do, and to ride back with you, and talk over our future home--since you
asked me, and I promised. But I shouldn't have come else, Mr. Tony!"

'"Ay, my dear, I did ask ye--to be sure I did, now I think of it--but I
had quite forgot it. To ride back with me, did you say, dear Milly?"

'"Well, of course! What can I do else? Surely you don't want me to
walk, now I've come all this way?"

'"O no, no! I was thinking you might be going on to town to meet your
mother. I saw her there--and she looked as if she might be expecting
'ee."

'"O no; she's just home. She came across the fields, and so got back
before you."

'"Ah! I didn't know that," says Tony. And there was no help for it but
to take her up beside him.

'They talked on very pleasantly, and looked at the trees, and beasts, and
birds, and insects, and at the ploughmen at work in the fields, till
presently who should they see looking out of the upper window of a house
that stood beside the road they were following, but Hannah Jolliver,
another young beauty of the place at that time, and the very first woman
that Tony had fallen in love with--before Milly and before Unity, in
fact--the one that he had almost arranged to marry instead of Milly. She
was a much more dashing girl than