ew yards, and ran up the muddy lane that
was the one approach to Sheba, her father's farm.

The house, a square, two-storeyed building of greystone, roofed with
heavy slates, was guarded in front by a small courtlage, the wall of
which blocked all view from the lower rooms. From the narrow mullioned
windows on the upper floor, however, one could look over it upon the
duck-pond across the road, and down across two grass meadows to the
cove. A white gate opened on the courtlage, and the path from this to
the front door was marked out by slabs of blue slate, accurately laid in
line. Ruby, in her present bedraggled state, avoided the front
entrance, and followed the wall round the house to the town-place,
stopping on her way to look in at the kitchen window.

"Mary Jane, if you call that a roast goose, I cull it a burning shame!"

Mary Jane, peeling potatoes with her back to the window, and tossing
them one by one into a bucket of water, gave a jump, and cut her finger,
dropping forthwith a half-peeled magnum bonum, which struck the bucket's
edge and slid away across the slate flooring under the table.

"Awgh--awgh!" she burst out, catching up her apron and clutching it
round the cut. "Look what you've done, Miss Ruby! an' me miles away,
thinkin' o' shipwrecks an' dead swollen men."

"Look at the Chris'mas dinner, you mazed creature!"

In truth, the goose was fast spoiling. The roasting apparatus in this
kitchen was a simple matter, consisting of a nail driven into the centre
of the chimney-piece, a number of worsted threads depending therefrom,
and a steel hook attached to these threads. Fix the joint or fowl
firmly on the hook, give it a spin with the hand, and the worsted
threads wound, unwound, and wound again, turning it before the blaze--an
admirable jack, if only looked after. At present it hung motionless
over the dripping-pan, and the goose wore a suit of motley, exhibiting a
rich Vandyke brown to the fire, an unhealthy yellow to the window.

"There now!" Mary Jane rushed to the jack and gave it a spin, while Ruby
walked round by the back door, and appeared dripping on the threshold.
"I declare 'tis like Troy Town this morning: wrecks and rumours o'
wrecks. Now 'tis 'Ropes! ropes!' an' nex' 'tis 'Where be the stable
key, Mary Jane, my dear?' an' then agen, 'Will'ee be so good as to fetch
master's second-best spy-glass, Mary Jane, an' look slippy?'--an' me wi'
a goose to stuff, singe, an' roast, an' 't