nt all the way to Braley Brook, however, and
right up to the ruinous old farmhouse where the Forests lived, and
waited in the orchard some time, hoping that Nancy would come out to
bring in some linen which hung to bleach among the bare apple trees. He
knew that Nancy always helped her mother in the evenings. But on this
evening no errand seemed to bring her out of doors, and Fred Hurst went
away without seeing her, meaning to meet her next day.

It would have been wiser if Fred had gone boldly to the farmhouse and
asked to see Nancy; but we are none of us wise at all times, and we have
generally to pay in pain for our lack of wisdom as well as for our
actual faults, though perhaps not in the same degree.

II.

Fred Hurst's father was Nancy's father's master, as we have seen; and a
hard enough master, as Mrs. Dodd had said. John Forest and his
family--that is, his wife and Nancy--lived in the only habitable part of
what had once been a considerable farmhouse. John worked on the "land,"
took care of the horses and other live stock--there were not many--and
his wife attended to the poultry, which were numerous enough. She also
earned a little by mending the holes which the rats bit in the
corn-sacks. In harvest-time she made gentian beer for the men, and a
kind of harvest cake, originally made for a four o'clock meal, which
explains the word known as "fourses." But with all these little extras
the Forests found it sufficiently hard to live, and of course Nancy was
not yet earning.

"You ought to have sent that girl of yours to service," Mr. Hurst would
not infrequently say to Nancy's mother. He, moreover, said the same
thing to his maiden sister Sabina, when Fred was present.

It was then that Fred's eyes opened to the fact that Nancy Forest was
more to him than anything else in the world--far, far more than the old
playmate he had thought her. Send Nancy to service! sweet, delicate,
lady-like little Nancy, with her dimpled white hands. Perhaps Nancy had
no business to have white hands, and dainty, refined ways; but she had,
and that was Aunt Sabina's fault for having her so much at the Manor. It
was partly nature's fault, too, certainly, for Nancy had always seemed
like a changeling, she was so above her surroundings.

Fred Hurst having thus discovered his own love, proceeded to discover
Nancy's. It was all clear to him now, he was sure she had given her pure
childlike heart to him, perhaps unwittingly, as he had