than a few frocks at a time, and those of the simplest
character; but she was quite alive to the necessity of an elaborate
wardrobe, and she had also an instinctive sense of what would be
proper for her position.

So the suggestions of Ulfar's father were accepted in their entirety,
and the old gentleman was put into a very good temper by the fact. And
what was a year? "It will pass like a dream," said Ulfar. "And I shall
write constantly to you, and you will write to me; and when we meet
again it will be to part no more." Oh, the poverty of words in such
straits as these! Men say the same things in the same extremities now
that have been said millions of times before them. And Aspatria felt
as if there ought to have been entirely new words, to express the joy
of their betrothal and the sorrow of their parting.

The short delay of a last week together was perhaps a mistake. A very
young girl, to whom great joy and great sorrow are alike fresh
experiences, may afford a prolonged luxury of the emotions of
parting. Love, more worldly-wise, deprecates its demonstrativeness,
and would avert it altogether. The farewell walks, the sentimental
souvenirs, the pretty and petty devices of love's first dream, are
tiresome to more practised lovers; and Ulfar had often proved what
very cobwebs they were to bind a straying fancy.

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder." Perhaps so, if the last memory
be an altogether charming one. It was, unfortunately, not so in
Aspatria's case. It should have been a closely personal farewell with
Ulfar alone; but Squire Anneys, in his hospitable ignorance, gave it a
public character. Several neighbouring squires and dames came to
breakfast. There was cup-drinking, and toasting, and speech-making;
and Ulfar's last glimpse of his betrothed was of her standing in the
wide porch, surrounded by a waving, jubilant crowd of strangers, whose
intermeddling in his joy he deeply resented. Anneys had invited them
in accord with the traditions of his house and order. Fenwick thought
it was a device to make stronger his engagement to Aspatria.

"As if it needed such contrivances!" he muttered angrily. "When it
does, it is a broken thread, and no Anneys can knot it again."

The weeks that followed were full of new interests to Aspatria.
Mistress Frostham, the wife of a near shepherd-lord, had been the
friend of Aspatria's mother; she was fairly conversant with the world
outside the fells and dales, and she too