of this clime--a jewel, that needed
not the foil of its homely setting; the envy and admiration of the
whole neighbourhood--well known at church, and at Ormskirk market,
where she attended weekly--at the latter place to dispose of her
produce. Here she was the torment of many a rustic, unable to conquer,
or even to understand, the power by which his heart was taken captive.

Avarice was the besetting sin of her father. He was always fearful of
becoming poor, and "not paying his way," as he called it. Yet was it
suspected that George Grimes had a "powerfu'" hoard, concealed both
from his family and friends. Money he doated on. It was an undoubted
fact that many a shining face went into the coffer of old Grimes that
was never again seen performing the common everyday functions of
currency and traffic.

He was always a-dreaming, too, that he had found treasure. Often he
would spend the greater part of a morning tide in pacing the brink of
the boiling waves, hoping to find there some coinage of his brain that
had been his dream on the preceding night. Southport then existed not,
at least in name. No gay and laughing crowds fluttered on the margin
of the deep. No lines of well-trimmed "green-eyed" houses looked on,
nor boats with their dancing pennons and bright forms shone gallantly
on the waves. All was bleak, bare, and unappropriated. The very air
seemed tenantless, save when the solitary gull came sailing on heavily
with the approaching tide, screaming over the gorge she beheld rising
on the billows. The loud lunge of the sea was interrupted solely by
the cry of the fisherman, and the "cockler's" whistle, plying his
scanty trade among the shoals and sandbanks about the coast. It is
scarcely possible to conceive a situation more desolate and
uninviting. Hills of arid sand skirting the beach, without vegetation
or enclosure, except where the withered bent and little golden-starred
stone-crop gave their own wild and peculiar aspect to the scene. The
shore is flat and unbroken to the very horizon, where the tide,
retreating to its extreme verge, throws up a dim sparkle in the
distance--Nature even here displaying her never-ceasing round of
reproduction and decay, of advance and retrocession.

We had almost forgotten that there was another inmate of the
household--a tall, thick-browed, high-cheeked menial, whose coarse
habiliments displayed a well-proportioned shape, and shoulders of an
athletic width. He had been engaged