rs to a black-coated man whom all addressed as
"Minister," though in talk among themselves they spoke of him rather as
The Rounder. Before the company sat he delivered a long grace with much
unction. Tilda--a child of the world, and accustomed to take folks as
she found them--eyed him with frank curiosity; but in Arthur Miles his
black coat and white tie awoke a painful association of ideas, and for a
while the child sat nervous and gloomy, without appetite to eat . . .
Tilda for once was unobservant of him. The Minister, with his long thin
neck, straggling black beard, weak, eloquent mouth and black, shining
eyes--the eyes of a born visionary--failed, as well they might, to
suggest a thought of Dr. Glasson. She was hungry, too, and her small
body glowing deliciously within her clean garments. Amid all this
clatter of knives and forks, these laughing voices, these cheerful,
innocent faces, who could help casting away care?

Now and again her eyes wandered around the great kitchen--up to the
oaken roof, almost black with age, and the hams, sides of bacon, bundles
of potherbs, bags of simples, dangling from its beams; across to the
old jack that stretched athwart the wall to the left of the fireplace--a
curious apparatus, in old times (as Chrissy explained to her) turned by
a dog, but now disused and kept only as a relic; to the tall settle on
the right with the bars beneath the seat, and behind the bars (so
Chrissy averred) a couple of live geese imprisoned, and quietly sitting
on their eggs amid all this uproar; to the great cave of the fireplace
itself, hung with pothooks and toothed cramps, where a fire of logs
burned on a hearthstone so wide that actually--yes, actually--deep in
its recess, and behind the fire, were set two smoke-blackened seats, one
in each farther angle under the open chimney.

Before the feast had been twenty minutes in progress the farmer looked
up and along the table and called for lights. His eyes, he explained,
were not so young as they had been. Roger--tallest of the young men--
jumped up and lit two oil-lamps that hung from the beams. The lamps had
immense reflectors above them, made of tin; but they shone like silver,
and Tilda took them for silver.

"That's cheerfuller!" shouted Farmer Tossell with a laugh of great
contentment, and fell-to again.

But as the light wavered and anon grew steady, Chrissy leaned over
Tilda, touched Arthur Miles on the shoulder, and pointed to the w