r new light on certain passages we had been reading, but soon
deserted me with the familiar contemptuous toss of the head, which meant
that he must wait for Fred Esquillant. He might have learned by this
time. At anything practical I was miles ahead of Freddie, who had no
world outside of his classical books. But then my father was of the same
type, with, in addition, the power of imparting and enthusing strong in
him--_his_ practical side, which Freddie did not possess--indeed, never
felt the lack of, much less the ambition to possess. He was content to
know. He had no desire to impart his knowledge.

I spent six mornings and five evenings out of my scanty twenty days at
the little thicket by the well. But the lilac was leafless now, and the
path which led back to the house of Heathknowes empty and deserted.

Once while I was in hiding my Uncle Rob came and stood so long by his
water-pails, looking across the hills in the direction of the Craig
Farm, that I made sure he had found me out, or was trying for a talk
with Miss Irma on his own account.

But Rob, as I might have known, was far too inconstant. As the saying
went, "He had a lass for ilka day in the week and twa for the Sabbath."
It is more than likely that his long rumination at the well was the
result of uncertainty as to whether it was the turn of Jeannie at the
Craig or Bell down by at Parkhill.

At any rate, it had no connection with me, for he went off home with his
burden, where presently I could hear him arranging with Eben as to the
foddering of the "beasts" and the "bedding" of the horses. For my three
uncles kept accounts as to exchanges of work, and were very careful as
to balancing them, too--though Rob occasionally "took the loan" of
good-tempered Eben without repayment of any sort.

After my fifth solitary vigil among the rustling of the frozen stems and
the dank desolation of the icebound copse on the edge of the marsh, I
began to go about with a huge affectation of gloom on my face. It was
clear that I was being played with. For this I had scorned the
red-cheeked dairy-lass at Echobank, and the waved kerchiefs of the
baker's daughter opposite. And the more unhappy and miserable I looked,
the closer I drew my inky cloak about me, the gayer, the more
light-hearted became Miss Irma.

I plotted deep, dark, terrible deeds. She urged me to yet another help
of dumpling. She had made the jam herself, she said. Or the
shortbread--now there _was_ so