nd she had come down the long church stair with life and
death suddenly become real to her mind, the enduring sea and hills
forming a contrasting background to the vanishing away of man. She
was full of a solemn wonder as to the abiding-place of the souls of
the dead, and a childlike dread lest the number of the elect should
be accomplished before she was included therein. How people could
ever be merry again after they had been at a funeral, she could not
imagine; so she answered gravely, and slightly beside the question:

'I wonder if I was a Friend if I should be good?'

'Gi' me your red cloak, that's all, when yo' turn Quaker; they'll
none let thee wear scarlet, so it 'll be of no use t' thee.'

'I think thou'rt good enough as thou art,' said Philip, tenderly--at
least as tenderly as he durst, for he knew by experience that it did
not do to alarm her girlish coyness. Either one speech or the other
made Sylvia silent; neither was accordant to her mood of mind; so
perhaps both contributed to her quietness.

'Folk say William Coulson looks sweet on Hester Rose,' said Molly,
always up in Monkshaven gossip. It was in the form of an assertion,
but was said in the tone of a question, and as such Philip replied
to it.

'Yes, I think he likes her a good deal; but he's so quiet, I never
feel sure. John and Jeremiah would like the match, I've a notion.'

And now they came to the stile which had filled Philip's eye for
some minutes past, though neither of the others had perceived they
were so near it; the stile which led to Moss Brow from the road into
the fields that sloped down to Haystersbank. Here they would leave
Molly, and now would begin the delicious _tete-a-tete_ walk, which
Philip always tried to make as lingering as possible. To-day he was
anxious to show his sympathy with Sylvia, as far as he could read
what was passing in her mind; but how was he to guess the multitude
of tangled thoughts in that unseen receptacle? A resolution to be
good, if she could, and always to be thinking on death, so that what
seemed to her now as simply impossible, might come true--that she
might 'dread the grave as little as her bed'; a wish that Philip
were not coming home with her; a wonder if the specksioneer really
had killed a man, an idea which made her shudder; yet from the awful
fascination about it, her imagination was compelled to dwell on the
tall, gaunt figure, and try to recall the wan countenance; a hatred
and desire