e Adam away without ever seeing her or
leaving a message for her.

"Well, come out with me," said Jerrem: "there's nothin' I should like
better than a bit of a stroll. I'd got it in my head before you spoke."

Eve hesitated.

"P'r'aps you'm thinkin' Adam 'ud blame 'ee for it?"

"Oh dear, no, I'm not: I'm not quite such a slave to Adam's opinion as
that. Besides," she added, feeling she was speaking, with undue
asperity, "surely everybody may go for a walk without being blamed by
anybody for it: at all events, I mean to go."

"That's right," said Jerrem.--"Here, I say, Joan, me and Eve's goin'
out for a little."

"Goin' out? Where to?" said Joan, coming forward toward the door, to
which he had advanced.

"Oh, round about for a bit--by Chapel Rock and out that ways."

"Well, if you goes with her, mind you comes back with her. D'ee hear,
now?--Don't 'ee trust un out o' yer sight, Eve, my dear--not further
than you can see un, nor so far if you can help it."

"You mind yer own business," said Jerrem.

"If you was to do that you'd stay at home, then," said Joan, dropping
her voice; "but that's you all over, tryin' to put your finger into
somebody's else's pie.--I doubt whether 'twill over-please Adam
either," she added, coming back from watching them down the street;
"but, there! if he and Eve's to sail in one boat, the sooner he learns
'twon't always be his turn to handle the tiller the better."

* * * * *

It was getting on for three o'clock when Adam, having completed all the
business he could accomplish on that day, was returning home. He had
been to the few gentlemen's houses near, had visited most of the large
farms around, and had found a good many customers ready to relieve him
of a considerable portion of the spirit which, by reason of their
living so near at hand, would thus evade much of the danger attendant
on a more distant transfer.

Every one had heard of the recent attack on the Lottery, and much
sympathy was expressed and many congratulations were tendered on
account of their happy escape.

Adam was a general favorite, looked up to and respected as an honest,
straight-forward fellow; and so little condemnation was felt against
the trade carried on that the very magistrate consented to take a
portion of the goods, and saw no breach of his office in the admonition
he gave to keep a sharp lookout against these new-comers, who seemed
somewhat over-inclined to show