spleasure.

'Oh,' said she, 'I must go. There's Philip looking at me so.'

'Philip!' said Kinraid, with a sudden frown upon his face.

'My cousin,' she replied, instinctively comprehending what had
flashed into his mind, and anxious to disclaim the suspicion of
having a lover. 'Mother told him to see me home, and he's noan one
for staying up late.'

'But you needn't go. I'll see yo' home.'

'Mother's but ailing,' said Sylvia, a little conscience-smitten at
having so entirely forgotten everything in the delight of the
present, 'and I said I wouldn't be late.'

'And do you allays keep to your word?' asked he, with a tender
meaning in his tone.

'Allays; leastways I think so,' replied she, blushing.

'Then if I ask you not to forget me, and you give me your word, I
may be sure you'll keep it.'

'It wasn't I as forgot you,' said Sylvia, so softly as not to be
heard by him.

He tried to make her repeat what she had said, but she would not,
and he could only conjecture that it was something more tell-tale
than she liked to say again, and that alone was very charming to
him.

'I shall walk home with you,' said he, as Sylvia at last rose to
depart, warned by a further glimpse of Philip's angry face.

'No!' said she, hastily, 'I can't do with yo''; for somehow she felt
the need of pacifying Philip, and knew in her heart that a third
person joining their _tete-a-tete_ walk would only increase his
displeasure.

'Why not?' said Charley, sharply.

'Oh! I don't know, only please don't!'

By this time her cloak and hood were on, and she was slowly making
her way down her side of the room followed by Charley, and often
interrupted by indignant remonstrances against her departure, and
the early breaking-up of the party. Philip stood, hat in hand, in
the doorway between the kitchen and parlour, watching her so
intently that he forgot to be civil, and drew many a jest and gibe
upon him for his absorption in his pretty cousin.

When Sylvia reached him, he said,--

'Yo're ready at last, are yo'?'

'Yes,' she replied, in her little beseeching tone. 'Yo've not been
wanting to go long, han yo'? I ha' but just eaten my supper.'

'Yo've been so full of talk, that's been the reason your supper
lasted so long. That fellow's none going wi' us?' said he sharply,
as he saw Kinraid rummaging for his cap in a heap of men's clothes,
thrown into the back-kitchen.

'No,' said Sylvia, in affright at Philip's fierce look and
pas