“Bless me, Dauphin, what does an old bachelor like you know about it?”

“Oh, that is one of the matters in which old bachelors are wiser than married men, because they have time for more general contemplation.  Your fine critic of woman must never shackle his judgment by calling one woman his own.  But, as an example of what I was saying, that pretty Methodist preacher I mentioned just now told me that she had preached to the roughest miners and had never been treated with anything but the utmost respect and kindness by them.  The reason is—­though she doesn’t know it—­that there’s so much tenderness, refinement, and purity about her.  Such a woman as that brings with her ‘airs from heaven’ that the coarsest fellow is not insensible to.”

“Here’s a delicate bit of womanhood, or girlhood, coming to receive a prize, I suppose,” said Mr. Gawaine.  “She must be one of the racers in the sacks, who had set off before we came.”

The “bit of womanhood” was our old acquaintance Bessy Cranage, otherwise Chad’s Bess, whose large red cheeks and blowsy person had undergone an exaggeration of colour, which, if she had happened to be a heavenly body, would have made her sublime.  Bessy, I am sorry to say, had taken to her ear-rings again since Dinah’s departure, and was otherwise decked out in such small finery as she could muster.  Any one who could have looked into poor Bessy’s heart would have seen a striking resemblance between her little hopes and anxieties and Hetty’s.  The advantage, perhaps, would have been on Bessy’s side in the matter of feeling.  But then, you see, they were so very different outside!  You would have been inclined to box Bessy’s ears, and you would have longed to kiss Hetty.

Bessy had been tempted to run the arduous race, partly from mere hedonish gaiety, partly because of the prize.  Some one had said there were to be cloaks and other nice clothes for prizes, and she approached the marquee, fanning herself with her handkerchief, but with exultation sparkling in her round eyes.

“Here is the prize for the first sack-race,” said Miss Lydia, taking a large parcel from the table where the prizes were laid and giving it to Mrs. Irwine before Bessy came up, “an excellent grogram gown and a piece of flannel.”

“You didn’t think the winner was to be so young, I suppose, Aunt?” said Arthur.  “Couldn’t you find something else for this girl, and save that grim-looking gown for one of the older women?”

“I have bought nothing but what is useful and substantial,” said Miss Lydia, adjusting her own lace; “I should not think of encouraging a love of finery in young women of that class.  I have a scarlet cloak, but that is for the old woman who wins.”

This speech of Miss Lydia’s produced rather a mocking expression in Mrs. Irwine’s face as she looked at Arthur, while Bessy came up and dropped a series of curtsies.

“This is Bessy Cranage, mother,” said Mr. Irwine, kindly, “Chad Cranage’s daughter.  You remember Chad Cranage, the blacksmith?”