er be the same any more.

If that uncle of Cecilia's would only have tied her to the leg of a
table, or locked her up in her bed-chamber, or done something to keep
her down there in the South, so that she had never come to torment us!

I suppose I ought not to wish that, if she makes Father happier. Ay,
but will she make him happy? That is just what I am uncomfortable
about! I don't believe she cares a pin for him, though I dare say she
likes well enough to be the Squire's lady, and queen it at Brocklebank.
Somehow, I cannot trust those tawny eyes, with their sidelong glances.
Am I very wicked, or is she?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Will things never give over happening?

This morning, just after I came down--there were only my Aunt Kezia, Mr
Keith, Flora, and me in the dining-parlour--we suddenly heard the great
bell of Brocklebank Church begin to toll. My Aunt Kezia set down the
chocolate-pot.

"It must be somebody who has died suddenly, poor soul!" cried she.
"Maybe, Ellen Armathwaite's baby: it looked very bad when I saw it last,
on Thursday. Hark!"

The bell stopped tolling, and we listened for the sound which would tell
us the sex and age of the departed.

"One!" Then silence.

That meant a man. Ellen Armathwaite's baby girl it could not be. Then
the bell began again, and we counted. It tolled on up to twenty--
thirty--forty: we could not think who it could be.

"Surely not Farmer Catterall!" said my Aunt Kezia, "I have often felt
afraid of an apoplexy for him."

But the bell went on past sixty, and we knew it was not Farmer
Catterall.

"Is it never going to stop?" said Flora, when it had passed eighty.

My Aunt Kezia went to the door, and calling Sam, bade him go out and
inquire. Still the bell tolled on. It stopped just as Sam came in, at
ninety-six.

"Who is it, Sam?--one of the old bedesmen?"

"Nay, Mrs Kezia; puir soul, 'tis just the auld Vicar!"

"Mr Digby!" we all cried together.

"Ay; my mither found him deid i' his bed early this morrow. She's come
up to tell ye, an' to ask gin' ye can spare me to go and gi'e a haun',
for that puir witless body, Mr Anthony Parmenter, seems all but daft."

Miss Osborne and Amelia came in together, and I saw Cecilia turn very
white. (Oh dear! how shall I give over calling her Cecilia?) My Aunt
Kezia told them what had happened, and I thought she looked relieved.

"What ails Mr Parmenter?" a