d to show me my faults, I'll take in hand to cure 'em so far
as a man may.'

'I don't think you're fickle,' said the girl hesitatingly; 'but I do
think you're shallow, Mr. Protheroe.'

'Not a bit of it, dear,' he protested. 'I'm as deep as Gamck. As for
your still waters running deep, it'd be a better proverb to my mind to
say deep waters run still--at times. Niagara's deepish, folks say that
have seen it. That's not to say that I even myself with Niagara, you'll
understand, though 'tis in my nature to splash about a good deal. But
all that apart, Bertha dear, try to make up your mind to take me as I
am, and help me to make a man o' myself.'

At this point back came the farmer's wife with a clatter of pails in
the back kitchen to indicate her arrival in advance. Lane took his leave
with a reluctant air, going away much more gravely than he had arrived.

'Well,' said Mrs. Fellowes, drawing her knitting from a capacious pocket
and falling to work upon it at once, 'hast sent Number Two about his
business?'

Bertha cast an embarrassed look at her and blushed.

'Mother,' she said, 'you seem to find out everything.'

'Can find my way to the parish church by daylight,' the elder woman
answered with complacency. 'But you tek care, my wench, whilst thee
beest throwin' all the straight sticks aside, as thee doesn't pick up a
crooked 'un at the last. Thee hast a fancy for the lad, too, that's as
plain to be seen as the Beacon.'

'Oh!' cried Bertha, reddening again. 'I hope not.'

'For me, my gell,' said her mother. 'For me. And it's outside my
thinkin' why a maid shouldn't tek a fancy to him. A lad as is stiddy
an' handsome, and as blithe as sunshine! He's as fond as a calf into the
bargain.'

She liked to hear him praised, and, woman-like, began to depreciate him
faintly.

'I don't think he's very solid, mother,' she said.

The elder woman smiled at the transparent artifice, and refused to be
entrapped by it.

'No,' she answered. 'Lane's a bit of a butterfly, I will say. And Jack
Thistlewood's a bulldog. Mek your ch'ice betwixt 'em while they'm there
to be chose from. Which is it to be? Butterfly or bulldog?'

But Bertha answered nothing.

II

Things may have changed of late years, but in those days the parish
churchyard was the great meeting-place for lovers who as yet were
undeclared or unaccepted. The youth and the maid were both there for
a purpose altogether removed from love-making--the meeting ha