r--yes, it was!' The pent-up emotion had swollen and swollen
inside the young thing till the dam could no longer embay it. The
instant the words were out she would have given worlds to have been able
to recall them.

'Do you know her--or him?' said Miss Hinton, starting with suspicion at
the warmth shown.

The two rivals had now lost their personality quite. There was the same
keen brightness of eye, the same movement of the mouth, the same mind
in both, as they looked doubtingly and excitedly at each other. As is
invariably the case with women when a man they care for is the subject
of an excitement among them, the situation abstracted the differences
which distinguished them as individuals, and left only the properties
common to them as atoms of a sex.

Cytherea caught at the chance afforded her of not betraying herself.
'Yes, I know her,' she said.

'Well,' said Miss Hinton, 'I am really vexed if my speaking so lightly
of any friend of yours has hurt your feelings, but--'

'O, never mind,' Cytherea returned; 'it doesn't matter, Miss Hinton. I
think I must leave you now. I have to call at other places. Yes--I must
go.'

Miss Hinton, in a perplexed state of mind, showed her visitor politely
downstairs to the door. Here Cytherea bade her a hurried adieu, and
flitted down the garden into the lane.

She persevered in her duties with a wayward pleasure in giving herself
misery, as was her wont. Mr. Springrove's name was next on the list, and
she turned towards his dwelling, the Three Tranters Inn.

3. FOUR TO FIVE P.M.

The cottages along Carriford village street were not so close but that
on one side or other of the road was always a hedge of hawthorn or
privet, over or through which could be seen gardens or orchards rich
with produce. It was about the middle of the early apple-harvest, and
the laden trees were shaken at intervals by the gatherers; the soft
pattering of the falling crop upon the grassy ground being diversified
by the loud rattle of vagrant ones upon a rail, hencoop, basket,
or lean-to roof, or upon the rounded and stooping backs of the
collectors--mostly children, who would have cried bitterly at receiving
such a smart blow from any other quarter, but smilingly assumed it to be
but fun in apples.

The Three Tranters Inn, a many-gabled, mediaeval building, constructed
almost entirely of timber, plaster, and thatch, stood close to the line
of the roadside, almost opposite the churchyard, and wa