I “travel” in Tracts, edifying magazines, and books on the Holy Land; but in Tracts especially.  As Watteau painted the ladies and cavaliers of Versailles so admirably, because he despised them, so I will sell a Tract against any man alive.  Also, if there be one kind of Tract that I loathe more than another, it is the Pink Tract.  Paper of that colour is sacred to the Loves—­to stolen kisses and assignations—­and to see it with a comminatory text tacked on at the foot of the page turns my stomach.  I have served in my time many different masters, and mistresses; and it still pleases me, after quitting their service, to recognise the distinction between their dues.  So it must have been the heat that made me select a Pink Tract.  I leant back with my head in the shadow to digest its crude absurdity.

It was entitled, “How infernally Hot!” I doubt not the words were put in the mouth of some sinner, and the moral dwelt on their literal significance.  But half-way down the first page sleep must have descended on me:  and I woke up to the sound of light footsteps.

Pit-a-pat—­pit-a-pat-a-pit-pat.  I lifted my head.

Two small children were coming along the road towards me, hand-in-hand, through the heat—­a boy and a girl; who, drawing near and spying my long legs sprawling out into the dust, came to a stand, finger in mouth.

“Hullo, my dears!” I called out, “what are you doing out in this weather?”

The children stared at one another, and were silent.  The girl was about eight years old, wore a smart pink frock and sash, a big pink sun-bonnet, and carried an apple with a piece bitten out.  She seemed a little lady; whereas the boy wore corduroys and a battered straw hat, and was a clod.  Both children were exceedingly dusty and hot in the cheeks.

Finally, the girl disengaged her hand and stepped forward—­

“If you please, sir, are you a clergyman?”

Now this confused me a good deal; for, to tell the truth, I had worn a white tie in my younger days, before. . .  So I sat up and asked why she wished to know.

“Because we want to be married.”

I drew a long breath, looked from her to the boy, and asked—­

“Is that so?”

“She’s wishful,” answered he, nodding sulkily.

“Oho!” I thought; “Adam and Eve and the apple, complete.  Do you love each other?” I asked.

“I adore Billy,” cried the little maid “he’s the stable-boy at the ‘Woolpack’ in Blea-kirk—­”

“So I am beginning to smell,” I put in.

—­“and we put up there last night—­father and I. We travel in a chaise.  And this morning in the stable I saw Billy for the first time, and to see him is to love.  He is far below me in station, —­ain’t you, Billy dear?  But he rides beautifully, and is ever so strong, and not so badly ed—­educated as you would fancy:  he can say all his ‘five-times.’  And he worships me,—­don’t you, Billy?”