inning-wheel into the porch. Here she was engaged in the
primitive and good old fashion of preparing yarn for the wants of the
household--an occupation not then perfected into the system to which
it is now degraded. The wives and daughters of the wealthiest would
not then disdain to fabricate material for the household linen,
carrying us far back into simpler, if not happier times, when Homer
sung, and kings' daughters found a similar employment.

Alice was humming in unison with her wheel, her thoughts more free
from the very circumstance that her body was the subject of this
mechanical exercise.

"Good morrow, Mistress Alice!" said a sonorous voice at the entrance.
Turning suddenly, she espied the athletic beggar standing erect, with
his staff and satchel, on one side of the porch.

"Ha' ye an awmous to-day, lady?" He doffed his cap and held it forth,
more with the air of one bestowing a favour than soliciting one.

"Thou hast been i' the kitchen, I warrant," said Alice, "by the
breadth of thy satchel."

"An' what the worse are ye for that?" replied the saucy mendicant;
"your hounds and puppies would lick up the leavings, if I did not."

"Go to," said Alice, impatiently; "thou dost presume too far to escape
correction. Begone!"

"This air, I reckon--ay, this blessed air--is as free unto my use as
thine," said Noman, sullenly, and without showing any symptoms of
obedience.

"My brother shall know of thine insolence, and the menials shall drive
thee forth."

"Thy brother!--tell him, pretty maiden, that though he is a lawyer,
and his uncle, he who built this house to boot, he hath little left in
this misgoverned realm but to deal out injustice. Other folks' money
sticks i' their skirts that have precious little o' their own, I wis."

"I know not the nature of thine allusions, nor care I to bandy weapons
with such an adversary."

"Hark ye, lady! it was to solder down as pretty a piece of roguery as
one would wish to leave to one's heirs that Theophilus Ashton, thine
uncle, thy mother's brother, now deceased, went to London when he had
builded this house."

"Roguery!--mine uncle Ashton! Darest thou?"----

"Ay, the same. The spoils of my patrimony built this goodly dwelling,
and the battle of Marston Moor gave thy brother wherewith to buy the
remainder of the inheritance. I was made a beggar by my loyalty, he a
rich man by his treason."

"What means this foul charge?" said Alice, astounded by the audacity