er Holdsworth's shoulders. In doing so she touched his
shirt.

'Oh, how wet you are!' she cried, in pitying dismay; 'and you've hardly
got over your fever! Oh, Mr Holdsworth, I am so sorry!' He turned his
head a little, smiling at her.

'If I do catch cold, it is all my fault for having deluded you into
staying out here!' but she only murmured again, 'I am so sorry.' The
minister spoke now. 'It is a regular downpour. Please God that the hay
is saved! But there is no likelihood of its ceasing, and I had better
go home at once, and send you all some wraps; umbrellas will not be
safe with yonder thunder and lightning.'

Both Holdsworth and I offered to go instead of him; but he was
resolved, although perhaps it would have been wiser if Holdsworth, wet
as he already was, had kept himself in exercise. As he moved off,
Phillis crept out, and could see on to the storm-swept heath. Part of
Holdsworth's apparatus still remained exposed to all the rain. Before
we could have any warning, she had rushed out of the shelter and
collected the various things, and brought them back in triumph to where
we crouched. Holdsworth had stood up, uncertain whether to go to her
assistance or not. She came running back, her long lovely hair floating
and dripping, her eyes glad and bright, and her colour freshened to a
glow of health by the exercise and the rain.

'Now, Miss Holman, that's what I call wilful,' said Holdsworth, as she
gave them to him. 'No, I won't thank you' (his looks were thanking her
all the time). 'My little bit of dampness annoyed you, because you
thought I had got wet in your service; so you were determined to make
me as uncomfortable as you were yourself. It was an unchristian piece
of revenge!'

His tone of badinage (as the French call it) would have been palpable
enough to any one accustomed to the world; but Phillis was not, and it
distressed or rather bewildered her. 'Unchristian' had to her a very
serious meaning; it was not a word to be used lightly; and though she
did not exactly understand what wrong it was that she was accused of
doing, she was evidently desirous to throw off the imputation. At first
her earnestness to disclaim unkind motives amused Holdsworth; while his
light continuance of the joke perplexed her still more; but at last he
said something gravely, and in too low a tone for me to hear, which
made her all at once become silent, and called out her blushes. After a
while, the minister came back,