"I've beaten him," she said. "He challenged me to cross Windybrowe while he ran round the Bowder stone, but I got to the lonnin before he had crossed the bridge." Then, running to the corner of the lane, she plucked off her straw hat, waved it about her head, and shouted again in an accent of triumph: "Hurrah! hurrah! beaten, sir, beaten!" Paul Ritson came running down the fell in strides of two yards apiece. "Oh, you young rogue--you cheated!" he cried, coming to a stand and catching his breath. "Cheated?" said Greta, in a tone of dire amazement. "You bargained to touch the beacon on the top of Windybrowe, and you didn't go within a hundred yards of it." "The beacon? On Windybrowe?" said the girl, and wondrous perplexity shone in her lovely eyes. Paul wiped his brow, and shook his head and his finger with mock gravity at the beautiful cheat. "Now, Greta, now--now--gently--" Greta looked around with the bewildered gaze of a lost lambkin. "Mother," said Paul, "she stole a march on me." "He was the thief, Mrs. Ritson; you believe me, don't you?" "Me! why I never stole anything in my life--save one thing." "And what was that, pray?" said Greta, with another mighty innocent look. Paul crept up to her side and whispered something over her shoulder, whereupon she eyed him largely, and said with a quick smile: "You don't say so! But please don't be too certain of it. I'm sure I never heard of that theft." "Then here's a theft you shall hear of," said Paul, throwing one arm about her neck and tipping up her chin. There was a sudden gleam of rosy, roguish lips. Old Allan, with mischief dancing in his eyes, pretended to recover them from a more distant sight. "Er--why, what's that?" he said; "the sneck of a gate, eh?" Greta drew herself up. "How can you--and all the people looking--they might really think that we were--we were--" Paul came behind, put his head over one shoulder, and said: "And we're not, are we?" "They're weel matched, mother, eh?" said Allan, turning to his wife. "They're marra-to-bran, as folks say. Greta, he's a girt booby, isn't he?" Greta stepped up to the old man, and with a familiar gesture laid a hand on his arm. At the same moment Paul came to his side. Allan tapped his son on the back. "Thou girt lang booby," he said, and laughed heartily. All the shadows that had hung over him were gone. "And how's Parson Christian?" he asked in another tone. "Well, quite well, and as dear an old soul as ever," said Greta. "He's father and mother to thee baith, my lass. I never knew thy awn father. He was dead and gone before we coom't to these parts. And thy mother, too, God bless her! she's dead and gone now. But if this lad of mine, this Paul, this girt lang--Ah, and here's Mr. Bonnithorne, and Hughie, too." The return of the lawyer and Hugh Ritson abridged the threat of punishment that seemed to hang on the old man's lips.