"Is it?" said Abel. This time he could not hear his own voice, so loud was his heart beating. But he added, "All Scotch names have a democratic wideness; the clan includes both high and low." This was what he meant to have said. And as Charley looked quite unmoved it is to be supposed he got it safely uttered; but his blood was running at such a force through his veins, and his heart going like the piston of a steam-engine, with such tumult and riot of sound, that whether he said these words or not, or said some others in place of them, he never knew. CHAPTER III. Lily had met the young squire many times already in the Lover's Lane. The back-door of Miss Prentice's little house was near of access, and the girl had been too much dazzled by her conquest to think of right and wrong. Besides, had she been put to defend herself, she had, you may be sure, enough to say. There is no harm in meeting your sweetheart when you have no reason to be ashamed of him; and she was a free-born lass of the fells, and what if she did meet Mr Ridley and talk to him? Did that harm any one? She herself was proudly indifferent to being badly spoken of. "Those that know me," said Lily, "know me--and that's enough." She was proud, she meant no harm, and why should there be any danger in talking to a civil-spoken gentleman? Only ridiculous people with prejudices could see harm in it. It was a scolding from Miss Prentice which made Lily accord the first interview to the young squire. "It means no good to a lass like you when a gentleman comes after her," the dressmaker had said, and Lily had blazed into fury. "Them that speaks civil to me, I'll speak civil to them," the hot-headed girl said in all the pride of conscious purity. That was not the way to take a lass, the forewoman remarked, shaking her head; and she took the rustic beauty aside and whispered to her that however pleasant a gentleman's ways might be, the like of them kept honest lads away. "And to lose a good honest man that would give you a good house of your own, all for a laugh with the young squire, that would be little to your advantage." "Am I thinking of a man, or of what would be for my advantage?" said Lily, bursting away from this second counsellor, stung with vexation and shame. And it was in this mood that she rushed out, all tears and wrath, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks glowing, almost into young Ridley's arms. There were ladies of his own rank in the countryside for whom he had a general admiration, and any one of whom, if thrown in his way, might have absorbed the thoughts of the light-hearted young man; but Lily blazed upon him in her agitation, more beautiful, and far more engaging, than any of them. She wept to him, and stormed and laughed and bid him go, yet let him stay, with all the caprice which is more captivating than good sense and virtue. He had never been so much amused, so charmed out of himself; no one had ever before so thrown open to him the doors