orry for him; because all of a sudden it came to me that he may
be wiser than any of us, and one day it will be made plain to us,
what we have helped to do--or to spoil."

"Here is someone you had better be sorry for," said Emilia, glancing
along the path at the sound of footsteps and catching sight of Nancy.
"She has made up her mind that John Lambert will have no more to do
with us now; and the wedding not a month away!"

Sure enough, Nancy's eyes were red, and she gazed at Hetty less with
reprobation than with lugubrious reproach.

"Then she knows less of John Lambert than I do," said Hetty; "and
still less how deep he is in love with her. Nancy dear," she asked,
"was he to have walked over this morning?"

"He was coming from Haxey way," wailed Nancy. "He was to have been
here at ten o'clock and it is past that now. Of course he has heard,
and does not mean to come."

Hetty choked down an exceeding bitter sob.

"Anne--sister Anne," she answered in her old light manner, though she
desired to be alone and to weep: "go, look along the road and say if
you see anyone coming!"

Nancy turned away, too generous to upbraid her sister, but hotly
ashamed of her and her lack of contrition, and indignantly sorry for
herself. Nevertheless she went towards the gate whence she could see
along the road.

"It seems to me," said Emilia, "that you are scarcely awake yet to
your--your situation."

She was trying to recover her superiority, which Hetty had shaken by
guessing her secret.

"Oh, yes I am," Hetty answered. "But my time may be short for
talking: so I use what ways I can to make my sisters listen. Hark!"

"He is coming!" Nancy announced, running towards them from the gate.
Honest love shone in her eyes. "He is coming--and there is someone
with him!"

"Who?" asked Emilia. Hetty's eyes put the same question, far more
eagerly. She rose up: her face was white.

"I don't know. He--they--are half a mile away. Yet I seem to know
the figure. It is odd now--"

Hetty put out a hand and leaned it against the wood-stack to steady
herself. The sharpened end of a stake pierced her palm, but she did
not feel it.

"Is it--is it--" Her lips worked and formed the words, inaudibly.

"Run and look again," commanded Emilia.

But Hetty turned and walked swiftly away. Could it be _he_? No--and
yet why not? Until this moment she had not known how much she built
upon that chance. She loved him still: at the bott