, does he come every day, at the same hour?"

"Every day!" nodded Miss Priscilla, "it has become a matter of habit
with him."

"Ah?" said Bellew, smiling.

"If you were to ask me why he comes, I should answer that I fancy it is
to--look at the peaches. Dear me, Mr. Bellew! what a very foolish old
soldier he is, to be sure!" Saying which, pretty, bright-eyed Miss
Priscilla, laughed again, folded up her work, settled it in the basket
with a deft little pat, and, rising, took a small, crutch stick from
where it had lain concealed, and then, Bellew saw that she was lame.

"Oh yes,--I'm a cripple, you see," she nodded,--"Oh very, very lame! my
ankle, you know. That is why I came here, the big world didn't want a
poor, lame, old woman,--that is why Miss Anthea made me her Aunt, God
bless her! No thank you,--I can carry my basket. So you see,--he--has
lost an arm,--his right one, and I--am lame in my foot. Perhaps that is
why--Heigho! how beautifully the black birds are singing this morning,
to be sure!"

CHAPTER IX

_In which may be found some description of Arcadia, and gooseberries_

Anthea, leaning on her rake in a shady corner of the five-acre field,
turned to watch Bellew who, stripped to his shirt-sleeves, bare of neck,
and arm, and pitch-fork in hand, was busy tossing up great mounds of
sweet-smelling hay to Adam who stood upon a waggon to receive it, with
Small Porges perched up beside him.

A week had elapsed since Bellew had found his way to Dapplemere, a week
which had only served to strengthen the bonds of affection between him
and his "nephew," and to win over sharp-eyed, shrewd little Miss
Priscilla to the extent of declaring him to be: "First a gentleman,
Anthea, my dear, and Secondly,--what is much rarer, now-a-days,--a true
man!" A week! and already he was hail-fellow-well-met with everyone
about the place, for who was proof against his unaffected gaiety, his
simple, easy, good-fellowship? So he laughed, and joked as he swung his
pitch-fork, (awkwardly enough, to be sure), and received all hints, and
directions as to its use, in the kindly spirit they were tendered. And
Anthea, watching him from her shady corner, sighed once or twice, and
catching herself, so doing, stamped her foot at herself, and pulled her
sunbonnet closer about her face.

"No, Adam," he was saying, "depend upon it, there is nothing like
exercise, and, of all exercise,--give me a pitch-fork."

"Why, as to that, Mr. Belloo,