ior to her master and mistress, yet she
complained not of being in subjection to them. There were so many
interesting features in the character of this young servant girl that
she became in many respects like a daughter to her mistress. There was
no broad line of division in those days, in even the manorial hall,
between the lord and his domestics, and still less defined was the
position of the employer and the employed in a small farmhouse.
Consequent on this condition of things, Frank Lenine and Nancy were
thrown as much together as if they had been brother and sister. Frank
was rarely checked in anything by his over-fond parents, who were
especially proud of their son, since he was regarded as the handsomest
young man in the parish. Frank conceived a very warm attachment for
Nancy, and she was not a little proud of her lover. Although it was
evident to all the parish that Frank and Nancy were seriously devoted to
each other, the young man's parents were blind to it, and were taken by
surprise when one day Frank asked his father and mother to consent to
his marrying Nancy.

The Lenines had allowed their son to have his own way from his youth up;
and now, in a matter which brought into play the strongest of human
feelings, they were angry because he refused to bend to their wills.

The old man felt it would be a degradation for a Lenine to marry a
Trenoweth, and, in the most unreasoning manner, he resolved it should
never be.

The first act was to send Nancy home to Alsia Mill, where her parents
resided; the next was an imperious command to his son never again to see
the girl.

The commands of the old are generally powerless upon the young where the
affairs of the heart are concerned. So were they upon Frank. He who was
rarely seen of an evening beyond the garden of his father's cottage, was
now as constantly absent from his home. The house, which was wont to be
a pleasant one, was strangely altered. A gloom had fallen over all
things; the father and son rarely met as friends--the mother and her boy
had now a feeling of reserve. Often there were angry altercations
between the father and son, and the mother felt she could not become the
defender of her boy, in his open acts of disobedience, his bold defiance
of his parents' commands.

Rarely an evening passed that did not find Nancy and Frank together in
some retired nook. The Holy Well was a favourite meeting-place, and here
the most solemn vows were made. Locks