into the room where the wool was usually
stored in the later summer, and, at last she
found him, sitting at bay, like some hunted
creature, up behind the wood-stack.

"What are ye gone for, lad, and me seeking
you everywhere," asked she, breathless.

"I did not know you would seek me. I've
been away many a time, and no one has cared
to seek me," said he, crying afresh.

"Nonsense," replied Susan, " don't be so
foolish, ye little good-for-nought." But she
crept up to him in the hole he had made
underneath the great brown sheafs of wood,
and squeezed herself down by him. " What
for should folk seek after you, when you get
away from them whenever you can?" asked
she.

"They don't want me to stay. Nobody
wants me. If I go with father, he says I
hinder more than I help. You used to like
to have me with you. But now, you've taken
up with Michael, and you'd rather I was
away; and I can just bide away; but I
cannot stand Michael jeering at me. He's
got you to love him and that might serve him."

"But I love you, too, dearly, lad! " said
she, putting her arm round his neck.

"Which on us do you like best?" said he,
wistfully, after a little pause, putting her
arm away, so that he might look in her face,
and see if she spoke truth.

She went very red.

"You should not ask such questions. They
are not fit for you to ask. Nor for me to
answer."

"But mother bade you love me," said he,
plaintively.

"And so I do. And so I ever will do.
Lover nor husband shall come betwixt thee
and me, lad, ne'er a one of them. That I
promise thee, as I promised mother before, in
the sight of God and with her hearkening
now, if ever she can hearken to earthly word
again. Only I cannot abide to have thee
fretting, just because my heart is large
enough for two."

"And thou'lt love me always."

"Always, and ever. And the more— the
more thou'lt love Michael," said she,
dropping her voice.

"I'll try," said the boy, sighing, for he
remembered many a harsh word and blow of
which his sister knew nothing. She would
have risen up to go away, but he held her
tight, for here and now she was all his own,
and he did not know when such a time might
come again. So the two sate crouched up
and silent, till they heard the horn blowing
at the field-gate, which was the summons
home to any wanderers belonging to the
farm, and at this hour of the evening,
signified that supper was ready. Then, the two
went in.

CHAPTER II.

SUSAN and Michael were to be married in
April. He had already gone to take possession
of his new farm, three or four miles
away from Yew Nook; but that is
neighbouring, according to the acceptation of the
word, in that thinly-populated district,—
when William Dixon fell ill. He came home
one evening, complaining of head-ache and
pains in his limbs, but seemed to loathe the
posset which Susan prepared for him; the
treacle-posset which was the homely country
remedy against an incipient cold. He took
it to his bed, with a sensation of exceeding
weariness, and an odd, unusual-looking back
to the days of his youth, when he was a lad
living with his parents, in this very house.

The next morning, he had forgotten all
his life since then, and did not know his own
children, crying, like a newly-weaned baby,
for his mother to come and soothe away
his terrible pain. The doctor from Coniston,
said it was the typhus fever, and warned
Susan of its infectious character, and shook
his head over his patient. There were no
friends near to come and share her anxiety;
only good, kind old Peggy, who was
faithfulness itself, and one or two labourers'
wives, who would fain have helped her, had
not their hands been tied by their responsibility
to their own families. But, somehow,
Susan neither feared nor flagged. As
for fear, indeed, she had no time to give
way to it, for every energy of both body
and mind was required. Besides, the young
have had too little experience of the danger
of infection to dread it much. She did,
indeed, wish, from time to time, that Michael
had been at home to have taken Willie over
to his father's at High Beck; but then,
again, the lad was docile and useful to her,
and his fecklessness in many things might
make him be harshly treated by strangers,
so perhaps it was as well that Michael was
away at Appleby fair, or even beyond that;
gone into Yorkshire after horses.

Her father grew worse; and the doctor
insisted on sending over a nurse from Coniston.
Not a professed nurse, Coniston could
not have supported such a one; but a widow
who was ready to go where the doctor sent
her for the sake of the payment. When she
came, Susan suddenly gave way; she was
felled by the fever herself, and lay
unconscious for long weeks. Her consciousness
returned to her one spring afternoon; early
spring; April,— her wedding-month. There
was a little fire burning in the small corner-
grate, and the flickering of the blaze was
enough for her to notice in her weak state.
She felt that there was some one sitting on
the window side of her bed, behind the curtain,
but she did not care to know who it was; it
was even too great a trouble to her
languid mind to consider who it was likely
to be. She would rather shut her eyes, and
melt off again into the gentle luxury of sleep.
The next time she wakened, the Coniston
nurse perceived her movement, and made her
a cup of tea, which she drank with eager
relish; but still they did not speak, and once