Sim has aged fast these last six months, but he is brighter looking and more composed.  The dalespeople have tried hard to make up to him for their former injustice.  He receives their conciliatory attentions with a somewhat too palpable effort at cordiality, but he is only less timid than before.

Ralph leads Rotha to a vacant chair near to where his mother sits.

“A blithe heart maks a blooming look,” says Mattha to the girl.  Rotha’s face deserves the compliment.  To-day it looks as fresh as it is always beautiful.  But there is something in it now that we have never before observed.  The long dark lashes half hide and half reveal a tenderer light than has hitherto stolen into those deep brown eyes.  The general expression of the girl’s face is not of laughter nor yet of tears, but of that indescribable something that lies between these two, when, after a world of sadness, the heart is glad—­the sunshine of an April day.

“This seems like the sunny side of the hedge at last, Rotha,” says Ralph, standing by her side, twirling his straw hat on one hand.

There is some bustle in their vicinity.  The schoolmaster, who prides himself on having the fleetest foot in the district, has undertaken to catch a rabbit.  Trial of speed is made, and he succeeds in two hundred yards.

“Theer’s none to match the laal limber Frenchman,” says Mattha, “for catching owte frae a rabbit to a slap ower the lug at auld Nicky Stevens’s.”

“Ha! ha! ha!” laughs Reuben Thwaite, rather boisterously, as he comes up in time to hear the weaver’s conceit.

“There’s one thing I never caught yet, Master Reuben,” says Monsey.

“And what is it?” says the little blink-eyed dalesman.

“A ghost on a lime-and-mould heap!”

“Ha! ha! ha!  He’s got a lad’s heart the laal man has,” says Mattha, with the manner of a man who is conscious that he is making an original observation.

And now the sun declines between the Noddle Fell and Bleaberry.  The sports are over, but not yet is the day’s pleasure done.  When darkness has fallen over meadow and mountain the kitchen of the house on the Moss is alive with bright faces.  The young women of Wythburn have brought their spinning-wheels, and they sit together and make some pretence to spin.  The young men are outside.  The old folks are in another room with Mrs. Ray.

Presently a pebble is heard to crack against the window pane.

“What ever can it be?” says one of the maidens with an air of profound amazement.

One venturesome damsel goes to the door “Why, it’s a young man!” she says, with overpowering astonishment.

The unexpected creature enters the kitchen, followed by a longish line of similar apparitions.  They seat themselves on the table, on the skemmels, on the stools between the spinners—­anywhere, everywhere.

What sport ensues! what story-telling! what laughing! what singing!