im; delighting in
his company when her father was not by. But no one ever was to her
like her father.

The chief bond between her and Lord Ravenel--or "Anselmo," as he would
have us call him--was music. He taught her to play on the organ, in
the empty church close by. There during the long midsummer evenings,
they two would sit for hours in the organ-gallery, while I listened
down below; hardly believing that such heavenly sounds could come from
those small child-fingers; almost ready to fancy she had called down
some celestial harmonist to aid her in playing. Since, as we used to
say--but by some instinct never said now--Muriel was so fond of
"talking with the angels."

Just at this time, her father saw somewhat less of her than usual. He
was oppressed with business cares; daily, hourly vexations. Only twice
a week the great water-wheel, the delight of our little Edwin as it had
once been of his father, might be seen slowly turning; and the
water-courses along the meadows, with their mechanically-forced
channels, and their pretty sham cataracts, were almost always low or
dry. It ceased to be a pleasure to walk in the green hollow, between
the two grassy hills, which heretofore Muriel and I had liked even
better than the Flat. Now she missed the noise of the water--the cry
of the water-hens--the stirring of the reeds. Above all, she missed
her father, who was too busy to come out of his mill to us, and hardly
ever had a spare minute, even for his little daughter.

He was setting up that wonderful novelty--a steam-engine. He had
already been to Manchester and elsewhere, and seen how the new power
was applied by Arkwright, Hargreaves, and others; his own ingenuity and
mechanical knowledge furnished the rest. He worked early and
late--often with his own hands--aided by the men he brought with him
from Manchester. For it was necessary to keep the secret--especially
in our primitive valley--until the thing was complete. So the
ignorant, simple mill people, when they came for their easy Saturday's
wages, only stood and gaped at the mass of iron, and the
curiously-shaped brickwork, and wondered what on earth "the master" was
about? But he was so thoroughly "the master," with all his kindness,
that no one ventured either to question or interfere.

CHAPTER XXVII

Summer waned. Already the beech-wood began to turn red, and the little
yellow autumn flowers to show themselves all over the common, while in
t