oat gave it an air of simplicity almost childlike
in effect. Her arms below the elbows were uncovered, and her hands
were small and finely formed, as patrician hands should be. There was
no ring upon them, and no bracelet above them. She wore neither brooch
nor locket, nor ornament of any kind about her person; only a daffodil
laid against the snowy skin of her bosom. Even this effect was not the
result of coquetry; it was a holy and loving sentiment materialized.

Altogether, she was a girl quite in keeping with the antique, homelike
air of the handsome room she entered; her look, her manner, and even
her speech had the local stamp; she was evidently a daughter of the
land. Her brothers resembled her after their masculine fashion. They
were big men, whom nature had built for the spaces of the moors and
mountains and the wide entrances of these old Cumberland homes. They
would have been pushed to pass through narrow city doorways. A fine
open-air colour was in their faces; they had that confident manner
which great physical strength imparts, and that air of conscious pride
which is born in lords of the soil.

Indeed, William and Brune Anneys made one understand how truthfully
popular nomenclature has called an Englishman "John Bull." For whoever
has seen a bull in its native pastures--proud, obstinate, conscious of
his strength, and withal a little surly--must understand that there is
a taurine basis to the English character, finely expressed by the
national appellation.

A great thing was to happen that hour, and all three were as
unconscious of the approaching fate as if it was to be a part of
another existence. Squire William finished his accounts, and played a
game of chess with his brother. Aspatria walked up and down the hall,
with her hands clasped behind her, or sat still in the Squire's
hearth-chair, with her dress lifted a little in front, to let the
pleasant heat fall upon her ankles. She did not think of reading or of
sewing, or of improving the time in any way. Perhaps she was not as
dependent on books as the women of this generation. Aspatria's mind
was sensitive and observing; it lived very well on its own ideas.

The storm increased in violence; the rain beat against the windows,
and the wind howled at the nail-studded oak door, as if it intended to
blow it down. A big ploughman entered the room, shyly pulled his
front hair, and looked with stolid inquiry into his master's face.
The Squire pushed asi