mill ran blue among the broad green pastures; the air smelt of cream-bowls and wheaten loaves; the firs on the beacon-ridge, far southward, over Fenhurst and Helm villages, were transported nearer to see the show, and stood like friends anxious to renew acquaintance.  Dahlia and Rhoda taught the children to perceive how they resembled bent old beggar-men.  The two stone-pines in the miller’s grounds were likened by them to Adam and Eve turning away from the blaze of Paradise; and the saying of one receptive child, that they had nothing but hair on, made the illustration undying both to Dahlia and Rhoda.

The magic of the weather brought numerous butterflies afield, and one fiddler, to whose tuning the little women danced; others closer upon womanhood would have danced likewise, if the sisters had taken partners; but Dahlia was restrained by the sudden consciousness that she was under the immediate observation of two manifestly London gentlemen, and she declined to be led forth by Robert Armstrong.  The intruders were youths of good countenance, known to be the son and the nephew of Squire Blancove of Wrexby Hall.  They remained for some time watching the scene, and destroyed Dahlia’s single-mindedness.  Like many days of gaiety, the Gods consenting, this one had its human shadow.  There appeared on the borders of the festivity a young woman, the daughter of a Wrexby cottager, who had left her home and but lately returned to it, with a spotted name.  No one addressed her, and she stood humbly apart.  Dahlia, seeing that every one moved away from her, whispering with satisfied noddings, wished to draw her in among the groups.  She mentioned the name of Mary Burt to her father, supposing that so kind a man would not fail to sanction her going up to the neglected young woman.  To her surprise, her father became violently enraged, and uttered a stern prohibition, speaking a word that stained her cheeks.  Rhoda was by her side, and she wilfully, without asking leave, went straight over to Mary, and stood with her under the shadow of the Adam and Eve, until the farmer sent a messenger to say that he was about to enter the house.  Her punishment for the act of sinfulness was a week of severe silence; and the farmer would have kept her to it longer, but for her mother’s ominously growing weakness.  The sisters were strangely overclouded by this incident.  They could not fathom the meaning of their father’s unkindness, coarseness, and indignation.  Why, and why? they asked one another, blankly.  The Scriptures were harsh in one part, but was the teaching to continue so after the Atonement?  By degrees they came to reflect, and not in a mild spirit, that the kindest of men can be cruel, and will forget their Christianity toward offending and repentant women.

CHAPTER II