I know not what catastrophe.'

'I beg your pardon, sir,' stammered she;--suddenly calming down,--the
light of reason seeming to break upon her beclouded spirit, and a faint
blush mantling on her cheek--'I did not know you;--and I thought--'

She stooped to kiss the child, and fondly clasped her arm round his neck.

'You thought I was going to kidnap your son, I suppose?'

She stroked his head with a half-embarrassed laugh, and replied,--'I did
not know he had attempted to climb the wall.--I have the pleasure of
addressing Mr. Markham, I believe?' she added, somewhat abruptly.

I bowed, but ventured to ask how she knew me.

'Your sister called here, a few days ago, with Mrs. Markham.'

'Is the resemblance so strong then?' I asked, in some surprise, and not
so greatly flattered at the idea as I ought to have been.

'There is a likeness about the eyes and complexion I think,' replied she,
somewhat dubiously surveying my face;--'and I think I saw you at church
on Sunday.'

I smiled.--There was something either in that smile or the recollections
it awakened that was particularly displeasing to her, for she suddenly
assumed again that proud, chilly look that had so unspeakably roused my
aversion at church--a look of repellent scorn, so easily assumed, and so
entirely without the least distortion of a single feature, that, while
there, it seemed like the natural expression of the face, and was the
more provoking to me, because I could not think it affected.

'Good-morning, Mr. Markham,' said she; and without another word or
glance, she withdrew, with her child, into the garden; and I returned
home, angry and dissatisfied--I could scarcely tell you why, and
therefore will not attempt it.

I only stayed to put away my gun and powder-horn, and give some requisite
directions to one of the farming-men, and then repaired to the vicarage,
to solace my spirit and soothe my ruffled temper with the company and
conversation of Eliza Millward.

I found her, as usual, busy with some piece of soft embroidery (the mania
for Berlin wools had not yet commenced), while her sister was seated at
the chimney-corner, with the cat on her knee, mending a heap of
stockings.

'Mary--Mary! put them away!' Eliza was hastily saying, just as I entered
the room.

'Not I, indeed!' was the phlegmatic reply; and my appearance prevented
further discussion.

'You're so unfortunate, Mr. Markham!' observed the younger sister, with
one of her arch