lamp was burning and there were a couple of spinning wheels to
be seen. As they came in they noticed a bell hung on a pole just
outside the door. Not a bit like the palace of Queen Anne! and
altogether the lark didn't appear to have the advantages it first had.

"O heaven! What shall we do?" Martha said to Nancy. "We must get out
of this soon, in some way."

"Well, the main thing is to get to bed now," Nancy declared, and so
the girls turned to say good-night to the two farmers.

"Good-night? Not so. There are your duties to be done first."

"Our duties?" Martha exclaimed, looking blank.

"Oh, don't disturb them to-night," Lionel interrupted, speaking to his
brother. Lionel was more and more impressed with both of them,
especially with the beauty of Martha. "They are very tired. Don't
disturb them to-night."

"But you will spoil them to begin with," Plunkett insisted. "And by
the way, what are your names?" he asked.

"Mine is Martha," Lady Harriet answered dolefully.

"Mine is--Julia," Nancy said impatiently.

"Ho, ho! Too grand to please me!--but, Julia, my dame of fashion,
pray, put my cloak away," Plunkett returned, handing it to her.

"Upon my life! What impertinence!" she cried, throwing the cloak upon
the floor. "Put away your own cloak."

"What--what?" Plunkett shouted, enraged, and starting up.

"Now, pray be lenient with them, brother. They are quite strange to
our ways, perhaps--and then they are very tired, you know. Probably
overworked by their last master. Leave matters to me. I'll put them
quite at their ease;" whereupon Lionel took his hat and held it out to
Martha.

"Martha--take it, if you please," Martha looked at him haughtily, and
turned her back on him. Poor Lionel was distracted and abashed.

"Well, really, I don't--I don't know just what to do myself," he
declared, as his brother snorted with satisfaction at Lionel's
discomfiture.

"Well," said Lionel, hesitating a moment; then he took his hat and
hung it up himself; then Plunkett picked up _his_ cloak and waited
upon _him_self.

"A pretty kettle-of-fish, I should say," he muttered. "Well, then, to
your spinning!"

"To our spinning?" they cried in unison.

"Yes, yes, to your spinning," Plunkett returned testily. "Do you
expect to do nothing but entertain us with conversation? To your
spinning, I said." Then all at once the women burst out laughing.

"Are ye good for nothing?" Plunkett shouted, in a greater rage. "Come,
we