downed' him--that Garth?"

"Ey?"

The glaring eyes were coming back. Liza, frightened again, began once
more to whimper prettily.

"I didn't mean to flayte you, Liza," Robbie said coaxingly. "You're a
fair coax when you want something," said Liza, trying to disengage
herself from the grasp of Robbie's arm about her waist. He might be an
invalid, Liza thought, but he was wonderfully strong, and he was
holding her shockingly tight. What _was_ the good of struggling?

Robbie snatched a kiss.

"Oh you--oh you--oh! oh! If I had known that you were so wicked--oh!"

"Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me, or I will never let you go,
never," cried Robbie.

"Never?" Liza felt that she _must_ forgive this tyrant.

"Well, if you'll loosen this arm I'll--I'll _try_."

"Liza, how much do you love me?" inquired Robbie.

"Did you speak to me?"

"Oh, no, to crusty old 'Becca down the road. How much do you love me?"

Robbie's passion was curiously mathematical.

"Me? How much? About as much as you might put in your eye."

Robbie pretended to look deeply depressed. He dropped his head, but
kept, nevertheless, an artful look out of the corner of the eye which
was alleged to be the measure of his sweetheart's affection.

Thinking herself no longer under the fire of Robbie's glances, Liza's
affectation of stern disdain melted into a look of tenderness.

Robbie jerked his head up sharply. The little woman was caught. She
revenged herself by assuming a haughty coldness. But it was of no use.
Robbie laughed and crowed and bantered.

At this juncture Mattha Branth'et came into the cottage.

The weaver was obviously in a state of profound agitation. He had just
had a "fratch" with the Quaker preachers on the subject of election.

"I rub't 'm t' wrang way o' t' hair," said the old man, "when I axt
'em what for they were going aboot preaching if it were all settled
aforehand who was to be damned and who was to be saved. 'Ye'r a child
of the devil,' says one. 'Mebbee so,' says I, 'and I dunnet know if
the devil iver had any other relations; but if so, mebbee yersel's his
awn cousin.'"

It was hard on Matthew that, after upholding Quakerism for years
against the sneers of the Reverend Nicholas Stevens, he should be thus
disowned and discredited by the brotherhood itself.

"Tut! theer's six o' tean an' hofe a duzzen of t' tudder," said the
old sage, dismissing the rival theologians from his mind forever.

"Oh, Robbie, lad," sa