ough, and about their always being friends from
that time forth--and about all that sort of thing. And when Joe said,
not friends he hoped, Dolly was quite surprised, and said not enemies
she hoped; and when Joe said, couldn't they be something much better
than either, Dolly all of a sudden found out a star which was brighter
than all the other stars, and begged to call his attention to the same,
and was ten thousand times more innocent and unconscious than ever.

In this manner they travelled along, talking very little above a
whisper, and wishing the road could be stretched out to some dozen times
its natural length--at least that was Joe's desire--when, as they were
getting clear of the forest and emerging on the more frequented road,
they heard behind them the sound of a horse's feet at a round trot,
which growing rapidly louder as it drew nearer, elicited a scream from
Mrs Varden, and the cry 'a friend!' from the rider, who now came panting
up, and checked his horse beside them.

'This man again!' cried Dolly, shuddering.

'Hugh!' said Joe. 'What errand are you upon?'

'I come to ride back with you,' he answered, glancing covertly at the
locksmith's daughter. 'HE sent me.

'My father!' said poor Joe; adding under his breath, with a very
unfilial apostrophe, 'Will he never think me man enough to take care of
myself!'

'Aye!' returned Hugh to the first part of the inquiry. 'The roads are
not safe just now, he says, and you'd better have a companion.'

'Ride on then,' said Joe. 'I'm not going to turn yet.'

Hugh complied, and they went on again. It was his whim or humour to
ride immediately before the chaise, and from this position he constantly
turned his head, and looked back. Dolly felt that he looked at her, but
she averted her eyes and feared to raise them once, so great was the
dread with which he had inspired her.

This interruption, and the consequent wakefulness of Mrs Varden, who had
been nodding in her sleep up to this point, except for a minute or
two at a time, when she roused herself to scold the locksmith for
audaciously taking hold of her to prevent her nodding herself out of
the chaise, put a restraint upon the whispered conversation, and made
it difficult of resumption. Indeed, before they had gone another mile,
Gabriel stopped at his wife's desire, and that good lady protested she
would not hear of Joe's going a step further on any account whatever. It
was in vain for Joe to protest on the