r his fancy was tickled.

His eyes having lighted on the table-cloth, plates, and viands, he found
himself in a position which had a sensible awkwardness for a modest man
who always liked to enter only at seasonable times the presence of a girl
of such pleasantly soft ways as Anne Garland, she who could make apples
seem like peaches, and throw over her shillings the glamour of guineas
when she paid him for flour.

'Dinner is over, neighbour Loveday; please come in,' said the widow,
seeing his case. The miller said something about coming in presently;
but Anne pressed him to stay, with a tender motion of her lip as it
played on the verge of a solicitous smile without quite lapsing into
one--her habitual manner when speaking.

Loveday took off his low-crowned hat and advanced. He had not come about
pigs or fowls this time. 'You have been looking out, like the rest o'
us, no doubt, Mrs. Garland, at the mampus of soldiers that have come upon
the down? Well, one of the horse regiments is the --th Dragoons, my son
John's regiment, you know.'

The announcement, though it interested them, did not create such an
effect as the father of John had seemed to anticipate; but Anne, who
liked to say pleasant things, replied, 'The dragoons looked nicer than
the foot, or the German cavalry either.'

'They are a handsome body of men,' said the miller in a disinterested
voice. 'Faith! I didn't know they were coming, though it may be in the
newspaper all the time. But old Derriman keeps it so long that we never
know things till they be in everybody's mouth.'

This Derriman was a squireen living near, who was chiefly distinguished
in the present warlike time by having a nephew in the yeomanry.

'We were told that the yeomanry went along the turnpike road yesterday,'
said Anne; 'and they say that they were a pretty sight, and quite
soldierly.'

'Ah! well--they be not regulars,' said Miller Loveday, keeping back
harsher criticism as uncalled for. But inflamed by the arrival of the
dragoons, which had been the exciting cause of his call, his mind would
not go to yeomanry. 'John has not been home these five years,' he said.

'And what rank does he hold now?' said the widow.

'He's trumpet-major, ma'am; and a good musician.' The miller, who was a
good father, went on to explain that John had seen some service, too. He
had enlisted when the regiment was lying in this neighbourhood, more than
eleven years before, which put his