ay, but tell me, child."

"Well, then, Jessie Carrick has been at me; that is all."

"The vixen! what did she say?"

"Nay, I'm not pleased enow with it to repeat it. She did cast something
in my teeth."

Griffith pressed her to be more explicit: she declined, with so many
blushes, that his curiosity was awakened, and he told Mrs. Vint, with
some heat, that Jess Carrick had been making Mercy cry.

"Like enow," said Mrs. Vint, coolly. "She'll eat her victuals all one
for that, please God."

"Else I'll wring the cock-nosed jade's neck, next time she comes here,"
replied Griffith; "but, Dame, I want to know what she can have to say to
Mercy to make her cry."

Mrs. Vint looked him steadily in the face for some time, and then and
there decided to come to an explanation. "Ten to one 't is about her
brother," said she; "you know this Paul is our Mercy's sweetheart."

At these simple words Griffith winced, and his countenance changed
remarkably. Mrs. Vint observed it, and was all the more resolved to have
it out with him.

"Her sweetheart!" said Griffith. "Why, I have seen them together a dozen
of times, and not a word of courtship."

"O, the young men don't make many speeches in these parts. They show
their hearts by act."

"By act? why, I met them coming home from milking t' other evening.
Mercy was carrying the pail, brimful; and that oaf sauntered by her
side, with his hands in his pockets. Was that the act of a lover?"

"I heard of it, sir," said Mrs. Vint, quietly; "and as how you took the
pail from her, willy nilly, and carried it home. Mercy was vexed about
it. She told me you panted at the door, and she was a deal fitter to
carry the pail than you, that is just off a sick-bed, like. But lawk,
sir, ye can't go by the likes of that. The bachelors here they'd see
their sweethearts carry the roof into next parish on their backs, like a
snail, and never put out a hand; 't is not the custom hereaway. But, as
I was saying, Paul and our Mercy kept company, after a manner: he never
had the wit to flatter her as should he, nor the stomach to bid her name
the day and he'd buy the ring; but he talked to her about his sick
beasts more than he did to any other girl in the parish, and she'd have
ended by going to Church with him; only you came and put a coolness
atween 'em."

"I! How?"

"Well, sir, our Mercy is a kind-hearted lass, though I say it, and you
were sick, and she did nurse you; and that was a beginning. A