ween Roy and a many more, father, besides the
Dawsons," observed Robin.
"Ay! Rachel, child"--turning his head to the hearth, where his daughter
sat apart--"folks have said that young Luke wants to make up to you. But
I'd not like it. Luke's a good-meaning, kind-hearted lad himself, but
I'd not like you to be daughter-in-law to old Roy."
"Be easy, father dear. I'd not have Luke Roy if he were made of gold. I
never yet had anything to say to him, and I never will have. We can't
help our likes and dislikes."
"Pshaw!" said Robin, with pardonable pride. "Pretty Rachel is not for a
daft chap like Luke Roy, that's a head and ears shorter nor other men.
Be you, my dear one?"
Rachel laughed. Her conscience told her that she enjoyed a joke at
Luke's undersize. She took a shower of kisses from the little girl, put
her down, and rose.
"I must go," she said. "Mrs. Verner may be calling for me."
"Don't she know you be come out?" asked old Matthew.
"No. But do not fear that I came clandestinely--or, as our servants
would say, on the sly," added Rachel, with a smile. "Mrs. Verner has
told me to run down to see you whenever I like, after she has gone in to
dinner. Good-night, dear father."
The old man pressed her to his heart: "Don't thee get fretting again my
blessing. I don't care to see thee with red eyes."
For answer, Rachel burst into tears then--a sudden, violent burst. She
dashed them away again with a defiant, reckless sort of air, broke, into
a laugh, and laid the blame on her headache. Robin said he would walk
home with her.
"No, Robin, I would rather you did not to-night," she replied. "I have
two or three things to get at Mother Duff's, and I shall stop there a
bit, gossiping. After that, I shall be home in a trice. It's not dark;
and, if it were, who'd harm me?"
They laughed. To imagine harm of any sort occurring, through walking a
mile or so alone at night, would never enter the head of honest country
people. Rachel departed; and Robin, who was a domesticated man upon the
whole, helped his wife to put the children to bed.
Scarcely an hour later, a strange commotion arose in the village. People
ran about wildly, whispering dread words to one another. A woman had
just been drowned in the Willow Pond.
The whole place flocked down to the Willow Pond. On its banks, the
centre of an awe-struck crowd, which had been quickly gathering, lay a
body, recently taken out of the water. It was all that remain
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