ooked her in the face. "Marty South," he
said, with deliberate emphasis, "YOU'VE GOT A LOVER YOURSELF, and
that's why you won't let it go!"

She reddened so intensely as to pass the mild blush that suffices to
heighten beauty; she put the yellow leather glove on one hand, took up
the hook with the other, and sat down doggedly to her work without
turning her face to him again. He regarded her head for a moment, went
to the door, and with one look back at her, departed on his way
homeward.

Marty pursued her occupation for a few minutes, then suddenly laying
down the bill-hook, she jumped up and went to the back of the room,
where she opened a door which disclosed a staircase so whitely scrubbed
that the grain of the wood was wellnigh sodden away by such cleansing.
At the top she gently approached a bedroom, and without entering, said,
"Father, do you want anything?"

A weak voice inside answered in the negative; adding, "I should be all
right by to-morrow if it were not for the tree!"

"The tree again--always the tree! Oh, father, don't worry so about
that. You know it can do you no harm."

"Who have ye had talking to ye down-stairs?"

"A Sherton man called--nothing to trouble about," she said, soothingly.
"Father," she went on, "can Mrs. Charmond turn us out of our house if
she's minded to?"

"Turn us out? No. Nobody can turn us out till my poor soul is turned
out of my body. 'Tis life-hold, like Ambrose Winterborne's. But when
my life drops 'twill be hers--not till then." His words on this subject
so far had been rational and firm enough. But now he lapsed into his
moaning strain: "And the tree will do it--that tree will soon be the
death of me."

"Nonsense, you know better. How can it be?" She refrained from further
speech, and descended to the ground-floor again.

"Thank Heaven, then," she said to herself, "what belongs to me I keep."

CHAPTER III.

The lights in the village went out, house after house, till there only
remained two in the darkness. One of these came from a residence on
the hill-side, of which there is nothing to say at present; the other
shone from the window of Marty South. Precisely the same outward effect
was produced here, however, by her rising when the clock struck ten and
hanging up a thick cloth curtain. The door it was necessary to keep
ajar in hers, as in most cottages, because of the smoke; but she
obviated the effect of the ribbon of light through the chink by