the highest respect,) 'but I'd as lief yon Holdsworth had never
come near us. So there you've a bit o' my mind.' And a very
unsatisfactory bit it was. I did not know what to answer to the glimpse
at the real state of the case implied in the shrewd woman's speech; so
I tried to put her off by assuming surprise at her first assertion.

'Amiss with Phillis! I should like to know why you think anything is
wrong with her. She looks as blooming as any one can do.'

'Poor lad! you're but a big child after all; and you've likely never
heared of a fever-flush. But you know better nor that, my fine fellow!
so don't think for to put me off wi' blooms and blossoms and such-like
talk. What makes her walk about for hours and hours o' nights when she
used to be abed and asleep? I sleep next room to her, and hear her
plain as can be. What makes her come in panting and ready to drop into
that chair,'--nodding to one close to the door,--'and it's "Oh! Betty,
some water, please"? That's the way she comes in now, when she used to
come back as fresh and bright as she went out. If yon friend o' yours
has played her false, he's a deal for t' answer for; she's a lass who's
as sweet and as sound as a nut, and the very apple of her father's eye,
and of her mother's too' only wi' her she ranks second to th' minister.
You'll have to look after yon chap, for I, for one, will stand no wrong
to our Phillis.'

What was I to do, or to say? I wanted to justify Holdsworth, to keep
Phillis's secret, and to pacify the woman all in the same breath. I did
not take the best course, I'm afraid.

'I don't believe Holdsworth ever spoke a word of--of love to her in all
his life. I'm sure he didn't.'

'Ay. Ay! but there's eyes, and there's hands, as well as tongues; and a
man has two o' th' one and but one o' t'other.'

'And she's so young; do you suppose her parents would not have seen it?'

'Well! if you axe me that, I'll say out boldly, "No". They've called
her "the child" so long--"the child" is always their name for her when
they talk on her between themselves, as if never anybody else had a
ewe-lamb before them--that she's grown up to be a woman under their
very eyes, and they look on her still as if she were in her long
clothes. And you ne'er heard on a man falling in love wi' a babby in
long clothes!'

'No!' said I, half laughing. But she went on as grave as a judge.

'Ay! you see you'll laugh at the bare thought on it--and I'll be bound
th' mini