was to put on Louisa’s shawl and Leghorn hat, and then go and sit on the edge of the ditch.  “You must remember to sit down,” he continued, “for if you remain standing he will see at once that you’re a foot shorter, and at least a foot broader than Louisa.”  At last—­at last Mrs. Behrens allowed herself to be persuaded, and when she went out at the back-door about eight o’clock that evening, wearing Louisa’s shawl and hat, the parson who was standing at his study-window thinking over his sermon, said to himself wonderingly:  “What on earth is Regina doing with Louisa’s hat and shawl?  And there’s Braesig coming out of the arbor.  He must want to speak to me about something—­but it’s a very odd thing altogether!”

Mrs. Behrens went down the garden path with Braesig feeling ready for anything that might befall.  She opened the garden-gate and went out alone, leaving Braesig squatted under the hedge like a great toad, but no sooner was she by herself than her courage oozed away, and she said:  “Come to the ditch with me, Braesig, you’re too far away there, and must be close at hand to help me when I’ve caught him.”  “All right!” said Braesig, and he accompanied her to the ditch.

Canal-like ditches such as this are no longer to be found in all the country-side, for the thorough system of drainage to which the land has been subjected has done away with their use; but every farmer will remember them in the old time.  They were from fifteen to twenty feet wide at the top, but tapered away till quite narrow at the bottom, and were fringed with thorns and other bushwood.  They were generally dry except in spring and autumn, when there was a foot or a foot and half of water in them, or in summer for a day or two after a thunder-storm.  That was the case now.  “Braesig hide yourself behind that thorn so that you may come to the rescue at once.”  “Very well,” said Braesig.  “But, Mrs. Behrens,” he continued after a pause, “you must think of a signal to call me to your help.”  “Yes,” she said.  “Of course!  But what shall it be?  Wait! when I say:  ’The Philistines be upon thee,’ spring upon him.”  “I understand, Mrs. Behrens!”

“Goodness gracious me!” thought the clergyman’s wife.

[Illustration:  BETWEEN DANCES BENJAMIN VAUTIER]

“I feel as if I were quite a Delilah.  Going to a rendezvous at half past eight in the evening!  At my age too!  Ah me, in my old age I’m going to do what I should have been ashamed of when I was a girl.”  Then aloud.  “Braesig don’t puff so loud any one could hear you a mile off.”  Resuming her soliloquy:  “And all for the sake of a boy, a mischievous wretch of a boy.  Good gracious!  If my pastor knew what I was about!” Aloud.  “What are you laughing at, Braesig?  I forbid you to laugh, it’s very silly of you.”  “I didn’t laugh, Mrs. Behrens.”  “Yes, you did, I heard you distinctly.”  “I only yawned, Mrs. Behrens, it’s such frightfully slow work lying here.”  “You