rp voice, which usually came painfully from the back regions of
the house; it would ill have harmonised with the sweet autumn day and
the robin's song. I sat, idly thinking so, and wondering whether it
were a necessary and universal fact that human beings, unlike the year,
should become harsh and unlovely as they grow old.

My robin had done singing, and I amused myself with watching a spot of
scarlet winding down the rural road, our house being on the verge where
Norton Bury melted into "the country." It turned out to be the cloak
of a well-to-do young farmer's wife riding to market in her cart beside
her jolly-looking spouse. Very spruce and self-satisfied she appeared,
and the market-people turned to stare after her, for her costume was a
novelty then. Doubtless, many thought as I did, how much prettier was
scarlet than duffle grey.

Behind the farmer's cart came another, which at first I scarcely
noticed, being engrossed by the ruddy face under the red cloak. The
farmer himself nodded good-humouredly, but Mrs. Scarlet-cloak turned up
her nose. "Oh, pride, pride!" I thought, amused, and watched the two
carts, the second of which was with difficulty passing the farmer's, on
the opposite side of the narrow road. At last it succeeded in getting
in advance, to the young woman's evident annoyance, until the driver,
turning, lifted his hat to her with such a merry, frank, pleasant smile.

Surely, I knew that smile, and the well-set head with its light curly
hair. Also, alas! I knew the cart with relics of departed sheep
dangling out behind. It was our cart of skins, and John Halifax was
driving it.

"John! John!" I called out, but he did not hear, for his horse had
taken fright at the red cloak, and required a steady hand. Very steady
the boy's hand was, so that the farmer clapped his two great fists, and
shouted "Bray-vo!"

But John--my John Halifax--he sat in his cart, and drove. His
appearance was much as when I first saw him--shabbier, perhaps, as if
through repeated drenchings; this had been a wet autumn, Jael had told
me. Poor John!--well might he look gratefully up at the clear blue sky
to-day; ay, and the sky never looked down on a brighter, cheerier face,
the same face which, whatever rags it surmounted, would, I believe,
have ennobled them all.

I leaned out, watching him approach our house; watching him with so
great pleasure that I forgot to wonder whether or no he would notice
me. He did no