the more especially as that star was
herself. She began to wonder more and more how she could have so
persistently held out against his advances before Bob came home to renew
girlish memories which had by that time got considerably weakened. Could
she not, after all, please the miller, and try to listen to John? By so
doing she would make a worthy man happy, the only sacrifice being at
worst that of her unworthy self, whose future was no longer valuable. 'As
for Bob, the woman is to be pitied who loves him,' she reflected
indignantly, and persuaded herself that, whoever the woman might be, she
was not Anne Garland.

After this there was something of recklessness and something of
pleasantry in the young girl's manner of making herself an example of the
triumph of pride and common sense over memory and sentiment. Her
attitude had been epitomized in her defiant singing at the time she
learnt that Bob was not leal and true. John, as was inevitable, came
again almost immediately, drawn thither by the sun of her first smile on
him, and the words which had accompanied it. And now instead of going
off to her little pursuits upstairs, downstairs, across the room, in the
corner, or to any place except where he happened to be, as had been her
custom hitherto, she remained seated near him, returning interesting
answers to his general remarks, and at every opportunity letting him know
that at last he had found favour in her eyes.

The day was fine, and they went out of doors, where Anne endeavoured to
seat herself on the sloping stone of the window-sill.

'How good you have become lately,' said John, standing over her and
smiling in the sunlight which blazed against the wall. 'I fancy you have
stayed at home this afternoon on my account.'

'Perhaps I have,' she said gaily--

'"Do whatever we may for him, dame, we cannot do too much!
For he's one that has guarded our land."

'And he has done more than that: he has saved me from a dreadful
scalding. The back of your hand will not be well for a long time, John,
will it?'

He held out his hand to regard its condition, and the next natural thing
was to take hers. There was a glow upon his face when he did it: his
star was at last on a fair way towards the zenith after its long and
weary declination. The least penetrating eye could have perceived that
Anne had resolved to let him woo, possibly in her temerity to let him
win. Whatever silent sorrow might be lo