‘Are you going far to-night?’ he asked at length, thinking he would make more progress toward friendship before he sat down.

‘To th’ town.’

‘Indeed, as far as that!  Which town, may I ask?’ he said, with mechanical politeness, for his mind was running on what he had seen.

‘Yer a fool and noae mistake,’ she replied with emphasis.  ’There’s but one town wi’in a walk.’

‘On the contrary, I am considered a man of great learning,’ he replied, with more eager self-assertion than he could hitherto have believed possible under the circumstances.

‘Is’t larning ye’ve got?’ she asked, with much greater interest than she had before evinced.

‘Yes; I am a man who spends his life seeking for knowledge.’

‘Are ye wiser ner parson?’

‘Very much wiser,’ replied the man of science, with honest conviction.

She looked much more impressed than he had hoped; and thinking that he had made himself sufficiently interesting, he began to speak about her own affairs, supposing they would please her better.

‘You are not a married woman?’ he said, looking at her ringless hand.

‘Married or no,’ she replied, ‘it’s nowt to you.’

’I beg your pardon; everything which concerns such a beautiful woman must be of interest to me.’

At that she laughed outright in hard derision, and went on eating her bread and meat.

‘But won’t you tell me if you are married or not?’ he pleaded, pursuing a subject which he thought must interest her.  He was surprised to see the sudden expression of womanly sorrow that came over her face, giving her eyes new depth and light.  She answered him sadly, looking past him into the sunny distance—­

‘No, nor like to be.’

’I must disagree with you there.  If you are not married yet, I am sure you will be very soon.  I never saw a more likely lassie than yourself.’

Manlike, he was quite unconscious of the consummate impertinence of the form this compliment had taken; but afterwards he realised it when his idle words recurred to his mind.

She turned her eyes full upon him, and said with energy:  ’Ye know nowt at all about it;’ and then added more meditatively, ’neither do parson.’

She had been so absorbed in her thoughts for a few minutes that she had ceased to stroke the dog, and, resenting this, it raised its silky head from her lap and laid it upon her breast.  Thus reminded, she smiled down into the eyes of the dog and caressed it, pressing its head closer against her bosom.  The man stood a few paces away, watching these two beautiful creatures as they sat in the hazy autumn sunlight, with their background of weeds and moss-grown paling.  He felt baffled and perplexed, for he knew that he stood apart, excluded from their companionship by something he could not define.  So intolerable did this feeling become that he resolved to break through it, and made a hasty movement to sit down