in
question, and, pending the moment at which it was necessary to use it,
he had deposited it on the floor behind him. But in the fervor of
impersonation, he had not observed that Liza had crept up and stolen
it away.

"Where's them flowers?" cried Romeo, scarcely _sotto voce_.

When the nosegay was yielded up to the lover on his knees, it was
found to be about three times as big as Juliet's head.

The play came to an abrupt conclusion; the spinning-wheels were pushed
aside, a fiddle was brought out, and then followed a dance.

"Iverything has a stopping spot but time," said Mattha Branthwaite,
coming in, his hat and cloak on.

The night was spent. The party must break up.

The girls drew on their bonnets and shawls, and the young men
shouldered the wheels.

A large company were to sail up the mere to the city in the row-boat,
and Rotha, Ralph, and Willy walked with them to Water's Head. Sim
remained with Mrs. Ray.

What a night it was! The moon was shining at the full from a sky of
deep blue that was studded with stars. Not a breath of wind was
stirring. The slow beat of the water on the shingle came to the ear
over the light lap against the boat. The mere stretched miles away. It
seemed to be as still as a white feather on the face of the dead, and
to be alive with light. Where the swift but silent current was cut
asunder by a rock, the phosphorescent gleams sent up sheets of
brightness. The boat, which rolled slowly, half-afloat and
half-ashore, was bordered by a fringe of silver. When at one moment a
gentle breeze lifted the water into ripples, countless stars floated,
down a white waterway from yonder argent moon. Not a house on the
banks of the mere; not a sign of life; only the low plash of wavelets
on the pebbles. Hark! What cry was that coming clear and shrill? It
was the curlew. And when the night bird was gone she left a silence
deeper than before.

The citizens, lads and lasses, old men and dames, got into the boat.
Robbie Anderson and three other young fellows took the oars.

"We'll row ourselves up in a twinkling," said Liza, as Ralph and Willy
pushed the keel off the shingle.

"Hark ye the lass!" cried Mattha. "We hounds slew the hare, quo' the
terrier to the cur."

The sage has fired off the last rustic proverb that we shall ever hear
from his garrulous old lips.

When they were fairly afloat, and rowing hard up the stream, the girls
started a song.

The three who stood together at th