before," and she peeped into the basket with a
face of horrified curiosity.

Now, Johnny had proclaimed that his
affections had fallen on Katie because she
was such a clever girl, and could do
everything; but this exhibition of her talents by
no means equalled his former impressions.
He tried her again:

"Can't you cook, Katie?  Did you never stuff
and roast a heart for your father's dinner?"

"Oh, Johnny, and you putting up for the
school-master's place; what wicked nonsense
you are talking! Surely you've called at the
Blue Cow by the way?

Johnny at this monstrous insinuation
broke out into a cold perspiration; he was
the most abstemious of young men, and had
a name in the village for every variety of
excellence; and Katie was quite capable of
telling her suspicions everywhere. He
endeavoured to take her hand and to put his
arm round her waist; but Katie brought her
palm against his cheek with such hearty
good will that he was fain to subside upon
his chair in meek dismay.

"If you do that again, Johnny Martin, I'll
tell my father," she cried; and, with an affectation
of great anger, she bowled his cabbages
out into the garden, and ordered him to
march after them in double quick time. He
took up his hat and obeyed her, casting on
her, as he went, the most pitiful and
expostulatory glances.

"Don't stop at the Blue Cow, Johnny; go
straight home," she cried as he went out at
the gate, and the defeated swain crept away
quite dejected.

Katie returned into the house, and began
to sleek her hair before the little glass by
the kitchen fire, humming a tune all the
time, and thinking how well she was rid of
Johnny, when that worthy's voice sounded
through the open window:

"I didn't stop at the Blue Cow, Katie."
She turned smartly round with such a shrewish
face that Johnny added, in haste to
deprecate her wrath, "I left my basket, Katie;
let me get it— it's in the corner.'

"At your peril set foot over the doorstone,
Johnny!" Johnny's plump countenance
instantly disappeared. She snatched
up the basket, threw it after him, and then
took a hearty fit of laughter to herself.

III.

It was the beginning of harvest; and,
on the evening of the day after Johnny
Martin's inauspicious courting visit, Kester
Pateman and Katie were sitting on the
wooden bench before the door, she knitting,
and he bemoaning, when a party of Irish
reapers, with their sickles in their hands,
came up the lane. They stopped at the gate,
and one of the men asked if Kester wanted
hands for his corn?

"No, I see nae the use o' hands," replied
the old man; "it'll all be spoilt."

It had been a splendid season, and Kester's
little fields showed as rich and ripe a crop as
any in the country; it was quite ready for
cutting, and the weather was settled and
favourable.

"But, father, you must have hands," said
Katie, who had a most irreverent disbelief in
the evil eye; "two reapers and a binder,
with you and me, will get the crops in this
week, and I'll overlook 'em for luck." Kester
stopped two men and a lad, and bade the
others go higher up the lane to Marshall's
farm. "But where's the good of it, Katie?"
he added. "You'd have had a tidy fortune
but for me. Go into the barn, lads,
you'll get your supper 'enow." The old
man was very despondent; for he had
just lost a fine calf, which he thought
to sell at a good price. Katie bade him
cheer up, and went indoors to set out the
supper for the reapers. When it was ready,
she called to them to come; three as Ragged
Robins as ever might have served for
scarecrows appeared at her bidding.

One of them was a tall fine young man,
with a head well set on his shoulders, a
roguish eye, and a very decided national
tongue. He looked at Katie, and she at him;
and, for the first time in her life, the girl's
eyes fell, and her colour rose. Alick seemed
slightly bashful too,—very slightly—for, after
dropping his glance on his plate for a second, it
followed Katie to and fro in the kitchen without
intermission, until she went out into the
garden again. Alick could see her through
the branches of briar across the window,
standing at the gate with her father, talking
to Rob Mc'Lean, and he immediately
conceived an intense dislike for that well-built
son of Vulcan, with the scar across his
forehead. Alick jumped to conclusions very
quickly; he had fallen in love at first sight,
and was ready to quarrel with any man
who so much as looked at Katie.

Having made an end of his supper, he went
out into the lane to his comrades, who were
sitting under the hedge resting and munching
lumps of bread and cheese,—Marshall's
kitchen not being big enough to hold them
all. Alick kept Katie at the gate in sight;
and, though she seemed never to look his
way, she knew perfectly well how he watched
her; and moved, perhaps, by the natural
spirit of coquetry, she marched with her
knitting into the house, and shut herself up
in her bedroom. It had a window looking
on the lane, and Katie sat near it with her
pins and stocking, peeping out sometimes to
see how the evening went on, and whether
there was promise of fine weather next day
to cut the corn. Alick wandered off by-and-by.
How should he know that tiny lattice
in the bushy pear-tree was Katie's?

IV.

ALICK, Kester, Katie, and the rest, were
all in the fields next morning as soon as