e for two or three minutes."

"And then that wretched old Simon is so perverse about it," said
the cousin. "You will never manage him."

"He is very provoking, certainly; but I get my own way generally,
in spite of him. And it is such a perfect plan, isn't it!"

"Oh, charming! if you can only bring it about."

"Now we must be really going home; papa will be getting
restless." So the young ladies left the hay-field deep in
castle-building for Harry Winburn and the gardener's daughter,
Miss Winter being no more able to resist a tale of true love than
her cousin, or the rest of her sex. They would have been more or
less than woman if they had not taken an interest in so absorbing
a passion as poor Harry's. By the time they reached the Rectory
gate they had installed him in the gardener's cottage with his
bride and mother (for there would be plenty of room for the
widow, and it would be so convenient to have the laundry close at
hand) and had pentioned old Simon, and sent him and his old wife
to wrangle away the rest of their time in the widow's cottage.
Castle-building is a delightful and harmless exercise.

Meantime David the constable had gone towards the mowers, who
were taking a short rest before finishing off the last half-acre
which remained standing. The person whose appearance had so
horrified Miss Winter was drawing beer for them from a small
barrel. This was an elderly raw-boned woman with a skin burnt as
brown as that of any of the mowers. She wore a man's hat and
spencer and had a strong harsh voice, and altogether was not a
prepossessing person. She went by the name of Daddy Cowell in the
parish, and had been for years a proscribed person. She lived up
on the heath, often worked in the fields, took in lodgers, and
smoked a short clay pipe. These eccentricities, when added to her
half-made clothing, were quite enough to account for the sort of
outlawry in which she lived. Miss Winter, and other good people
of Englebourn, believed her capable of any crime, and the
children were taught to stop talking and playing, and run away
when she came near them; but the constable, who had had one or
two search-warrants to execute in her house, and had otherwise
had frequent occasions of getting acquainted with her in the
course of his duties, had by no means so evil an opinion of her.
He had never seen much harm in her, he had often been heard to
say, and she never made pretence to much good. Nevertheless,
David was