to the other.
There were soda scones, light and hove up so as to make your teeth
water. There were farrels of oat-cake, crisp and curly, with just the
proper amount of browning on the side where the red ashes of the fire
had toasted it. Four or five kinds of jams there were, all better one
than the other. Old Caleb came in and ate quickly, sermonizing Mr.
Ablethorpe all the time, and as long as he was there we were all as
quiet as mice. But I am sure everyone was glad when he rose, tumbled
things about on the window seat in search of his blue bonnet (which
only he of all the countryside still wore), and finally went out to the
hill. Before going he warned us to behave and to remember that, _such
as he was_, we had one who deemed himself a minister among us.

But as soon as we were alone, up jumped Harriet Caw, and catching me
round the waist, she cried, "Dance, Joseph--dance, Joe! He's gone.
Never mind Granny Susan. She does not count!"

That was actually the way she spoke of her grandmother--or
step-grandmother, rather. And, indeed, that good lady only laughed,
and, shaking her head at the minister, repeated, what I afterwards
found to be her favourite maxim--that "young folk would be young folk."
The philosophy of which was that they would get over it all too soon.

The Hayfork Minister nodded back to Susan, and I was not sorry to see
him (as I thought) much taken up with the picture-book girl, as in my
heart I called Constantia. For in our house at home, up in the attic,
there are a lot of old "Annuals" and "Keepsakes"--oh, I don't know how
old, all in faded watered-silk covers loose at the back--some faded and
some where the colour has run, but choke full of pictures of scenery,
all camels and spiky palms and humpy camels, with "Palmyra" and
"Carthage" written beneath time about. But these are not half bad,
though deadly alike. The weary parts are the pictures of
girls--leaning out of windows before they have done their washing and
hair-brushing in the morning. I should just like to see my father
catch them at it. That was called "Dreaming of Thee." And there were
lots of others. "Sensibility" was a particularly bad one. She was
spread all over a sofa, and had a canary on her finger. She had saved
it from a little snappy-yappy spaniel--only just, for two tail feathers
were floating down. And there were two big dewdrops of tears on her
cheeks to show how sorry she was for the canary bird--or, perh