’Nation here! nation theere!  I’m a man and yo’re another, but nation’s nowheere.  If Measter Cholmley talked to me i’ that fashion, he’d look long for another vote frae me.  I can make out King George, and Measter Pitt, and yo’ and me, but nation! nation, go hang!’

Philip, who sometimes pursued an argument longer than was politic for himself, especially when he felt sure of being on the conquering side, did not see that Daniel Robson was passing out of the indifference of conscious wisdom into that state of anger which ensues when a question becomes personal in some unspoken way.  Robson had contested this subject once or twice before, and had the remembrance of former disputes to add to his present vehemence.  So it was well for the harmony of the evening that Bell and Sylvia returned from the kitchen to sit in the house-place.  They had been to wash up the pans and basins used for supper; Sylvia had privately shown off her cloak, and got over her mother’s shake of the head at its colour with a coaxing kiss, at the end of which her mother had adjusted her cap with a ‘There! there! ha’ done wi’ thee,’ but had no more heart to show her disapprobation; and now they came back to their usual occupations until it should please their visitor to go; then they would rake the fire and be off to bed; for neither Sylvia’s spinning nor Bell’s knitting was worth candle-light, and morning hours are precious in a dairy.

People speak of the way in which harp-playing sets off a graceful figure; spinning is almost as becoming an employment.  A woman stands at the great wool-wheel, one arm extended, the other holding the thread, her head thrown back to take in all the scope of her occupation; or if it is the lesser spinning-wheel for flax—­and it was this that Sylvia moved forwards to-night—­the pretty sound of the buzzing, whirring motion, the attitude of the spinner, foot and hand alike engaged in the business—­the bunch of gay coloured ribbon that ties the bundle of flax on the rock—­all make it into a picturesque piece of domestic business that may rival harp-playing any day for the amount of softness and grace which it calls out.

Sylvia’s cheeks were rather flushed by the warmth of the room after the frosty air.  The blue ribbon with which she had thought it necessary to tie back her hair before putting on her hat to go to market had got rather loose, and allowed her disarranged curls to stray in a manner which would have annoyed her extremely, if she had been upstairs to look at herself in the glass; but although they were not set in the exact fashion which Sylvia esteemed as correct, they looked very pretty and luxuriant.  Her little foot, placed on the ‘traddle’, was still encased in its smartly buckled shoe—­not slightly to her discomfort, as she was unaccustomed to be shod in walking far; only as Philip had accompanied them home, neither she nor Molly had liked to go barefoot.  Her round mottled arm and ruddy taper hand drew out