ey.
I didn't think you had so much sense. You and I will have a game
together--single wicket. We must play for something--what shall it be?'

'Oh--for nothing,' the curate vacuously remarked.

'That's for love, you rogue!' exclaimed the Squire. 'Come, come, none o'
that, sir--ha! ha!'

'Oh, very well; we'll play for love,' said Rose.

'And I'll hold the stakes, my dear--eh?'

'You dear old naughty Squire!--what do you mean?'

Rose laughed. But she had all the men surrounding her, and Mrs. Shorne
talked of departing.

Why did not Evan bravely march away? Why, he asked himself, had he come
on this cricket-field to be made thus miserable? What right had such as
he to look on Rose? Consider, however, the young man's excuses. He could
not possibly imagine that a damsel who rode one day to a match, would
return on the following day to see it finished: or absolutely know that
unseen damsel to be Rose Jocelyn. And if he waited, it was only to hear
her sweet voice once again, and go for ever. As far as he could fathom
his hopes, they were that Rose would not see him: but the hopes of youth
are deep.

Just then a toddling small rustic stopped in front of Evan, and set up a
howl for his 'fayther.' Evan lifted him high to look over people's heads,
and discover his wandering parent. The urchin, when he had settled to his
novel position, surveyed the field, and shouting, 'Fayther, fayther!
here I bes on top of a gentleman!' made lusty signs, which attracted not
his father alone. Rose sang out, 'Who can lend me a penny?' Instantly the
curate and the squire had a race in their pockets. The curate was first,
but Rose favoured the squire, took his money with a nod and a smile, and
rode at the little lad, to whom she was saying: 'Here, bonny boy, this
will buy you--'

She stopped and coloured.

'Evan!'

The child descended rapidly to the ground.

A bow and a few murmured words replied to her.

'Isn't this just like you, my dear Evan? Shouldn't I know that whenever I
met you, you would be doing something kind? How did you come here? You
were on your way to Beckley!'

'To London,' said Evan.

'To London! and not coming over to see me--us?'

Here the little fellow's father intervened to claim his offspring, and
thank the lady and the gentleman: and, with his penny firmly grasped, he
who had brought the lady and the gentleman together, was borne off a
wealthy human creature.

Before much further could be said between th