s simple face as ever was a swallow by a
linnet hidden in a cage among the grass.

"And that Ralph, too, the great lounderan fellow, he treats me like
dirt, that he does."

"But you'll pay him out now, won't you, Joseph?" said Liza, as though
glorying in the blacksmith's forthcoming glory.

"Liza, my lass, shall I tell you something?" Under the fire of a pair
of coquettish little eyes, his head as well as his heart seemed to
melt, and he became eagerly communicative. Dropping his voice, he
said,--

"That Ralph's not gone away at all. He'll be at his father's berrying,
that he will."

"Nay!" cried Liza, without a prolonged accent of surprise; and,
indeed, this fact had come upon her with so much unexpectedness that
her curiosity was now actually as well as ostensibly aroused.

"Yes," said Mr. Garth; "and there's those as knows where to lay hands
on him this very day--that there is."

"I shouldn't be surprised, now, if yon Robbie Anderson has been up to
something with him," said Liza, with a curl of the lip intended to
convey an idea of overpowering disgust at the conduct of the absent
Robbie.

"And maybe he has," said Mr. Garth, with a ponderous shake of the
head, denoting the extent of his reverse. Evidently "he could an' he
would."

"But you'll go to them, won't you, Joseph? That is them as wants
them--leastways one of them--them as wants _him_ will go and take him,
won't they?"

"That they will," said Joseph emphatically. "But I must be off, lass;
for I've the horses to get ready, forby the shortness of the time."

"So you're going on horseback, eh, Joey? Will it take you long?"

"A matter of two hours, for we must go by the Black Sail and come back
to Wastdale Head, and that's round-about, thou knows." "So you'll take
them on Wastdale Head, then, eh?" said Liza, turning her head aside as
though in the abundance of her maidenly modesty, but really glancing
slyly under the corner of her bonnet in the direction taken by the
mourners, and wondering if they could be overtaken.

Joseph was a little disturbed to find that he had unintentionally
disclosed so much of the design. The potency of the bright blue eyes
that looked up so admiringly into his face at the revelation of the
subtlety with which he had seen through a mystery impenetrable to less
powerful vision, had betrayed him into unexpected depths of
confidence.

Having gone so far, however, Mr. Garth evidently concluded that the
best course was t