e mists of the seventy or eighty
years that intervene between then and now. First and brightest to the
eye are the dozen candles, scattered about regardless of expense, and
kept well snuffed by the miller, who walks round the room at intervals of
five minutes, snuffers in hand, and nips each wick with great precision,
and with something of an executioner's grim look upon his face as he
closes the snuffers upon the neck of the candle. Next to the
candle-light show the red and blue coats and white breeches of the
soldiers--nearly twenty of them in all besides the ponderous Derriman--the
head of the latter, and, indeed, the heads of all who are standing up,
being in dangerous proximity to the black beams of the ceiling. There is
not one among them who would attach any meaning to 'Vittoria,' or gather
from the syllables 'Waterloo' the remotest idea of his own glory or
death. Next appears the correct and innocent Anne, little thinking what
things Time has in store for her at no great distance off. She looks at
Derriman with a half-uneasy smile as he clanks hither and thither, and
hopes he will not single her out again to hold a private dialogue
with--which, however, he does, irresistibly attracted by the white muslin
figure. She must, of course, look a little gracious again now, lest his
mood should turn from sentimental to quarrelsome--no impossible
contingency with the yeoman-soldier, as her quick perception had noted.

'Well, well; this idling won't do for me, folks,' he at last said, to
Anne's relief. 'I ought not to have come in, by rights; but I heard you
enjoying yourselves, and thought it might be worth while to see what you
were up to; I have several miles to go before bedtime;' and stretching
his arms, lifting his chin, and shaking his head, to eradicate any
unseemly curve or wrinkle from his person, the yeoman wished them an off-
hand good-night, and departed.

'You should have teased him a little more, father,' said the
trumpet-major drily. 'You could soon have made him as crabbed as a
bear.'

'I didn't want to provoke the chap--'twasn't worth while. He came in
friendly enough,' said the gentle miller without looking up.

'I don't think he was overmuch friendly,' said John.

''Tis as well to be neighbourly with folks, if they be not quite
onbearable,' his father genially replied, as he took off his coat to go
and draw more ale--this periodical stripping to the shirt-sleeves being
necessitated by the