Alick blushed, shifted his place and looked uneasy.  And again, as so often before, it came across him:  had he done right, judged by the highest law, to conceal the truth as he knew it about Leam?

“Hoot, man! there’s no call for you to sit on pins and needles in that fashion,” said Keziah.  “It’s a daft body that cannot hear a word of praise without turning as red as a turkey-cock and fidging like a parched pea on a drum-head.  I’ve not turned much of you over yet, and maybe I’ll come to what I’ll have no mind to praise; so keep your fidges till you are touched up with the other end of the stick.  And so you are to be our new priest, are you?”

“I am going to offer myself for a time,” said Alick.

“For a time?  That’s a thing as has two sides to it.  If you are not to our minds, that’s its good side:  if you are, and we are not to yours, that’s its bad.  I doubt if our folk will care to be played Jumping Joan with in that fashion.”

“I will be guided by the will of the Lord,” said Alick reverently.

“Humph!  I like the words better nor the chances in them,” returned Keziah, taking a pinch of snuff.  “But maybe things’ll work round as one would have them; and whether you stay or you do not, the Lord’s will be done, amen! and His grace follow you, young man!”

“Thank you,” said Alick with emotion, getting up and shaking the pickle-stained and snuff-discolored hand.

“I have a message for Miss Leonora Darley,” he then said after a pause.  “Mr. Gryce told me I was to be sure and tell him how she was looking.”

“Eh, poor bairn! she is not very first-rate,” the old woman answered tenderly.  At least it was tenderness in her:  in another person her voice and manner might have been taken for crabbedness and impatience.  “She’s up by there, on the fell somewhere.  She a’most lives on the fell-side, but it don’t make her look as brisk as I should like.  Have you seen the view from our brow-top?  It is a real bonny one; and you’ll maybe find Leonora not far off.  I don’t think she wanders far.”

“I should like to see it,” said Alick.  “The country altogether looks splendid to-day.”

“Ay, it’s a bonny day enough if it would but last.  Come your ways with me and I’ll set you out by the back door.  You can come in again the same road if you’ve a mind.”

On which she bustled up, and Alick, escorted by her, went through the house and on to the fell-side.

It was, if possible, grander now than it had been in the earlier part of the day.  The hot sun had cleared away the lingering mist, and the cloudless sky was like one large perfect opal, while the earth beneath shone and glistened as if it were a jewel set with various-colored gems.  There was not a mean or sordid thing about.  Touched by the splendid alchemy of the sun, the smallest circumstance was noble, the poorest color glorious.  Alick stood on the fell-brow entranced:  then turning, he saw slowly