contrast to the last time I was up here! Do you remember that
awful black-blue sky?"

"Don't I? Like a night-mare. Hullo! who's here?"

"Why, if it isn't the parson and Miss Winter," said East,
smiling.

True enough, there they were, standing together on the very verge
of the mound, beyond the firs, some ten yards in front of the
last comers, looking out into the sunset.

"I say, Tom, another good omen," whispered East; "hadn't we
better beat a retreat?"

Before Tom could answer, or make up his mind what to do, Hardy
turned his head and caught sight of them, and then Katie turned
too, blushing like the little clouds overhead. It was an
embarrassing moment. Tom stammered out that they had come up
quite by chance, and then set to work, well seconded by East, to
look desperately unconscious, and to expatiate on the beauties of
the view. The light began to fade, and the little clouds to
change again from soft pink to grey, and the evening star shone
out clear as they turned to descend the hill, when the Englebourn
clock chimed nine.

Katie attached herself to Tom, while Hardy helped the Captain
down the steep pitch, and on to the back of Nibble. They went a
little ahead. Tom was longing to speak to his cousin, but could
not tell how to begin. At last Katie broke the silence;

"I am so vexed that this should have happened!"

"Are you, dear? So am not I," he said, pressing her arm to his
side.

"But I mean, it seems so forward--as if I had met Mr. Hardy here
on purpose. What will your friend think of me?"

"He will think no evil."

"But indeed, Tom, do tell him, pray. It was quite an accident.
You know how I and Mary used to go up the Hawk's Lynch whenever
we could, on fine evenings."

"Yes, dear, I know it well."

"And I thought of you both so much to-day, that I couldn't help
coming up here."

"And you found Hardy? I don't wonder. I should come up to see the
sun set every night, if I lived at Englebourn."

"No. He came up sometime after me. Straight up the hill. I did
not see him till he was quite close. I could not run away then.
Indeed, it was not five minutes before you came."

"Five minutes are as good as a year sometimes."

"And you will tell your friend, Tom, how it happened?"

"Indeed I will, Katie. May I not tell him something more?"

He looked round for an answer, and there was just light enough to
read it in her eye.

"My debt is deepening to the Hawk's Lynch," he said, as they
walke