wdale towards
the foot of Stye Head Pass must necessarily be a hard and tiresome
one, there being scarcely a traceable path through the huge bowlders.
Here it was agreed that the mourners on foot should turn back, leaving
the more arduous part of the journey to those only who were mounted on
sure-footed ponies. Matthew Branthwaite, Monsey Laman, and Reuben
Thwaite were among the dozen or more dalesmen who left the procession
at this point.

When, on their return journey, they had regained the summit of the
Armboth Fell, and were about to descend past Blea Tarn towards
Wythburn, they stood for a moment at that highest point and took a
last glimpse of the mournful little company, with the one riderless
horse in front, that wended its way slowly beyond Rosthwaite, along
the banks of the winding Derwent, which looked to them now like a thin
streak of blue in the deep valley below.

Soon after the procession left the house on the Moss, arrangements
were put in progress for the meal that had to be prepared for the
mourners upon their return in the evening.

Some preliminary investigations into the quantity of food that would
have to be cooked in the hours intervening disclosed the fact that the
wheaten flour had run short, and that some one would need to go across
to the mill at Legberthwaite at once if hot currant cake were to be
among the luxuries provided for the evening table.

So Liza took down her cloak, tied the ribbons of her bonnet about her
plump cheeks, and set out over the dale almost immediately the funeral
party turned the end of the lonnin. The little creature tripped along
jauntily enough, with a large sense of her personal consequence to the
enterprises afoot, but without an absorbing sentiment of the gravity
of the occurrences that gave rise to them. She had scarcely crossed
the old bridge that led into the Legberthwaite highway when she saw
the blacksmith coming hastily from the opposite direction.

Now, Liza was not insensible of her attractions in the eyes of that
son of Vulcan, and at a proper moment she was not indisposed to accept
the tribute of his admiration. Usually, however, she either felt or
affected a measure of annoyance at the importunity with which he
prosecuted his suit, and when she saw him coming towards her on this
occasion her first feeling was a little touched with irritation.
"Here's this great tiresome fellow again," she thought; "he can never
let a girl go by without speaking t