s' expense. Come, friends," she added, changing at once
from bluntness to courtesy, "oblige me by taking your cans and going
home. I expect several persons to call to-day, and it will be
inconvenient to have the avenues to the house crowded."

Yorkshire people are as yielding to persuasion as they are stubborn
against compulsion. The yard was clear in five minutes.

"Thank you, and good-bye to you, friends," said Shirley, as she closed
the gates on a quiet court.

Now, let me hear the most refined of cockneys presume to find fault with
Yorkshire manners. Taken as they ought to be, the majority of the lads
and lasses of the West Riding are gentlemen and ladies, every inch of
them. It is only against the weak affectation and futile pomposity of a
would-be aristocrat they turn mutinous.

Entering by the back way, the young ladies passed through the kitchen
(or _house_, as the inner kitchen is called) to the hall. Mrs. Pryor
came running down the oak staircase to meet them. She was all unnerved;
her naturally sanguine complexion was pale; her usually placid, though
timid, blue eye was wandering, unsettled, alarmed. She did not, however,
break out into any exclamations, or hurried narrative of what had
happened. Her predominant feeling had been in the course of the night,
and was now this morning, a sense of dissatisfaction with herself that
she could not feel firmer, cooler, more equal to the demands of the
occasion.

"You are aware," she began with a trembling voice, and yet the most
conscientious anxiety to avoid exaggeration in what she was about to
say, "that a body of rioters has attacked Mr. Moore's mill to-night. We
heard the firing and confusion very plainly here; we none of us slept.
It was a sad night. The house has been in great bustle all the morning
with people coming and going. The servants have applied to me for orders
and directions, which I really did not feel warranted in giving. Mr.
Moore has, I believe, sent up for refreshments for the soldiers and
others engaged in the defence, for some conveniences also for the
wounded. I could not undertake the responsibility of giving orders or
taking measures. I fear delay may have been injurious in some instances;
but this is not my house. You were absent, my dear Miss Keeldar. What
could I do?"

"Were no refreshments sent?" asked Shirley, while her countenance,
hitherto so clear, propitious, and quiet, even while she was rating the
milk-fetchers, suddenly t