ly round her again, and
murmured--

'My lassie, try not to think on them as is gone, as is dead, but t'
think a bit more on him as loves yo' wi' heart, and soul, and might,
and has done iver sin' he first set eyes on yo'. Oh, Sylvie, my love
for thee is just terrible.'

At this moment Dolly Reid was seen at the back-door of the
farmhouse, and catching sight of Sylvia, she called out--

'Sylvia, thy mother is axing for thee, and I cannot make her mind
easy.'

In a moment Sylvia had sprung up from her seat, and was running in
to soothe and comfort her mother's troubled fancies.

Philip sate on by the well-side, his face buried in his two hands.
Presently he lifted himself up, drank some water eagerly out of his
hollowed palm, sighed, and shook himself, and followed his cousin
into the house. Sometimes he came unexpectedly to the limits of his
influence over her. In general she obeyed his expressed wishes with
gentle indifference, as if she had no preferences of her own; once
or twice he found that she was doing what he desired out of the
spirit of obedience, which, as her mother's daughter, she believed
to be her duty towards her affianced husband. And this last motive
for action depressed her lover more than anything. He wanted the old
Sylvia back again; captious, capricious, wilful, haughty, merry,
charming. Alas! that Sylvia was gone for ever.

But once especially his power, arising from whatever cause, was
stopped entirely short--was utterly of no avail.

It was on the occasion of Dick Simpson's mortal illness. Sylvia and
her mother kept aloof from every one. They had never been intimate
with any family but the Corneys, and even this friendship had
considerably cooled since Molly's marriage, and most especially
since Kinraid's supposed death, when Bessy Corney and Sylvia had
been, as it were, rival mourners. But many people, both in
Monkshaven and the country round about, held the Robson family in
great respect, although Mrs. Robson herself was accounted 'high' and
'distant;' and poor little Sylvia, in her heyday of beautiful youth
and high spirits, had been spoken of as 'a bit flighty,' and 'a
set-up lassie.' Still, when their great sorrow fell upon them, there
were plenty of friends to sympathize deeply with them; and, as
Daniel had suffered in a popular cause, there were even more who,
scarcely knowing them personally, were ready to give them all the
marks of respect and friendly feeling in their power. B