w; she had a pair of very fine, dark,
lustrous eyes, and no other good feature--unless I may so call her teeth,
which were very white and even. Her face was rather short, and swarthy as
a gipsy's; observant and sullen too; and she did not move, only eyed us
negligently from under her dark lashes as we drew near. Altogether a not
unpicturesque figure, with a dusky, red petticoat of drugget, and tattered
jacket of bottle-green stuff, with short sleeves, which showed her brown
arms from the elbow.

'That's Pegtop's daughter,' said Milly.

'Who is Pegtop?' I asked.

'He's the miller--see, yonder it is,' and she pointed to a very pretty
feature in the landscape, a windmill, crowning the summit of a hillock
which rose suddenly above the level of the treetops, like an island in the
centre of the valley.

'The mill not going to-day, Beauty?' bawled Milly.

'No--a, Beauty; it baint,' replied the girl, loweringly, and without
stirring.

'And what's gone with the stile?' demanded Milly, aghast. 'It's tore away
from the paling!'

'Well, so it be,' replied the wood nymph in the red petticoat, showing her
fine teeth with a lazy grin.

'Who's a bin and done all that?' demanded Milly.

'Not you nor me, lass,' said the girl.

''Twas old Pegtop, your father, did it,' cried Milly, in rising wrath.

''Appen it wor,' she replied.

'And the gate locked.'

'That's it--the gate locked,' she repeated, sulkily, with a defiant
side-glance at Milly.

'And where's Pegtop?'

'At t'other side, somewhere; how should I know where he be?' she replied.

'Who's got the key?'

'Here it be, lass,' she answered, striking her hand on her pocket. 'And how
durst you stay us here? Unlock it, huzzy, this minute!' cried Milly, with a
stamp.

Her answer was a sullen smile.

'Open the gate this instant!' bawled Milly.

'Well, I _won't._'

I expected that Milly would have flown into a frenzy at this direct
defiance, but she looked instead puzzled and curious--the girl's unexpected
audacity bewildered her.

'Why, you fool, I could get over the paling as soon as look at you, but I
won't. What's come over you? Open the gate, I say, or I'll make you.'

'Do let her alone, dear,' I entreated, fearing a mutual assault. 'She has
been ordered, may be, not to open it. Is it so, my good girl?'

'Well, thou'rt not the biggest fool o' the two,' she observed,
commendatively, 'thou'st hit it, lass.'

'And who ordered you?' exclaimed Milly.

'Fayt