elieving that it is, not I,' I says."

"But what was it, Liza? You've not told me what it was, lass, that
Mrs. Garth had said about me."

Rotha had stopped churning, and was standing, with the color rising
even closer round her eyes. Luckily, Liza had no time to observe the
minor manifestations of her friend's uneasiness; she had taken hold of
the "plunger," and was squaring herself to her work.

"Say!" she cried; "why the old carlin will say aught in the world but
her prayers--she says that you're settin' your cap at one of these
Rays boys; that's about what she says the old witchwife, for she's no
better. But it's as I said to 'Becca Rudd, says I, 'If it _is_ true
what traffic is it of anybody's; but it isn't true,' I says, 'and if
it _is_, where's the girl that has more right? It can't be Ralph that
she's settin' her cap at, 'Becca,' I says, 'for Ralph's gone, and
mayhap never to come to these parts again the longest day he lives.'"

"Don't say that, Liza," interrupted Rotha in a hoarse voice.

"Why not? Those redcoats are after him from Carlisle, arn't they?"

"Don't say he'll not come back. We scarce know what may happen."

"Well, that's what father says, anyway. But, back or not back, it
can't be Ralph, I says to 'Becca."

"There's not a girl worthy of him, Liza; not a girl on the country
side. But we'll not repeat their old wife's gossip, eh, lass?"

"Not if you're minded not to, Rotha. But as to there being no girl
worthy of Ralph," said Liza, pausing in her work and lifting herself
into an erect position with an air of as much dignity as a lady of her
stature could assume, "I'm none so sure of that, you know. He has a
fine genty air, I will say; and someways you don't feel the same to
him when he comes by you as you do to other men, and he certainly is a
great traveller; but to say that there isn't a girl worthy of him,
that's like Nabob Johnny tellin' Tibby Fowler that he never met the
girl that wasn't partial to him."

Rotha did not quite realize the parallel that had commended itself to
Liza's quick perception, but she raised no objection to the sentiment,
and would have shifted the subject.

"What about Robbie, my lass?" she said.

"'And as to Willy Ray,' says I to 'Becca," continued the loquacious
churner, without noticing the question, "' it isn't true as Rotha
would put herself in his way; but she's full his match, and you can't
show me one that is nigher his equal.'"

Rotha's confusion wa