y, one sad midnight,
hardly a fortnight ago? Yes; no other woman in Milby has those searching
black eyes, that tall graceful unconstrained figure, set off by her
simple muslin dress and black lace shawl, that massy black hair now so
neatly braided in glossy contrast with the white satin ribbons of her
modest cap and bonnet. No other woman has that sweet speaking smile, with
which she nods to Jonathan Lamb, the old parish clerk. And, ah!--now she
comes nearer--there are those sad lines about the mouth and eyes on which
that sweet smile plays like sunbeams on the storm-beaten beauty of the
full and ripened corn.

She is turning out of Orchard Street, and making her way as fast as she
can to her mother's house, a pleasant cottage facing a roadside meadow,
from which the hay is being carried. Mrs. Raynor has had her breakfast,
and is seated in her arm-chair reading, when Janet opens the door,
saying, in her most playful voice,--'Please, mother, I'm come to show
myself to you before I go to the Parsonage. Have I put on my pretty cap
and bonnet to satisfy you?'

Mrs. Raynor looked over her spectacles, and met her daughter's glance
with eyes as dark and loving as her own. She was a much smaller woman
than Janet, both in figure and feature, the chief resemblance lying in
the eyes and the clear brunette complexion. The mother's hair had long
been grey, and was gathered under the neatest of caps, made by her own
clever fingers, as all Janet's caps and bonnets were too. They were
well-practised fingers, for Mrs. Raynor had supported herself in her
widowhood by keeping a millinery establishment, and in this way had
earned money enough to give her daughter what was then thought a
first-rate education, as well as to save a sum which, eked out by her
son-in-law, sufficed to support her in her solitary old age. Always the
same clean, neat old lady, dressed in black silk, was Mrs. Raynor: a
patient, brave woman, who bowed with resignation under the burden of
remembered sorrow, and bore with meek fortitude the new load that the new
days brought with them.

'Your bonnet wants pulling a trifle forwarder, my child,' she said,
smiling, and taking off her spectacles, while Janet at once knelt down
before her, and waited to be 'set to rights', as she would have done when
she was a child. 'You're going straight to Mrs. Crewe's, I suppose? Are
those flowers to garnish the dishes?'

'No, indeed, mother. This is a nosegay for the middle of the