She said no more to Dorothy, whose huge scissors clipped the square of gay stuff lying before her as if to make the gaudy quilt was the one object of her life, but she ran upstairs to the bedroom she shared with Betty, and found her there, as she expected, exchanging her working gown, with its large apron, for what was called an afternoon frock, with a dainty kerchief and white apron. 'I have seen him,' Bryda exclaimed. 'Seen who?' Bet asked. 'The Squire. He is as hard as nails. He will have the money.' 'Why, Bryda, how did you get to the house?' 'I'll tell you, Bet; but,' she said, 'do get me a bit of something to eat and drink. I am so famished.' 'I wondered what had become of you, but I kept you a currant dumpling in the oven, and a bit of hash. I'll go and fetch it.' 'Yes, I would rather have it here.' However distressed the young are, and however perplexed, they do not lose their appetite. Bryda ate everything Betty brought her with keen relish, and drank a cup of cider. Then she said,--'I feel fit for anything now, and now I will tell you the whole story, and what I have resolved to do.' Betty was a sympathetic listener, but she did not quite see why Bryda should go to Bristol. 'No one wants me here.' '_I_ want you,' Betty said, 'and if trouble is coming, and the stock sold, and that dreadful young Squire comes here, I shall be frightened without you.' 'He won't come here any more, Bet; he has made up his mind, and he will stick to it, and I want to hear what Mr Lambert says about it all. I suppose it is lawful, if the paper was signed by grandfather, but I should like to tell the whole story to a man who knows about such things. Now, I am going to write my letter to Madam Lambert, and I shall be off to Bristol before the end of the week.' There was in Bryda's determination a dash of romance as well as of keen desire to do something to help her grandfather in his sore strait. Of course it may be questioned whether Betty, pursuing the even tenor of her way, and letting nothing interfere with her household work, was not more in the line of duty than her beautiful sister. But the two sisters were, as often happens, so entirely different in character that one cannot be judged by the same rules as the other. The impulsive enthusiast and the matter-of-fact, practical labourer in the field see things from a different standpoint. In this case there was no division of heart between the two. Betty believed in Bryda, and had for the whole of her short life looked on her as superior to herself, and to any of the few acquaintances of their own age whom the sisters knew, and she was quite content to take the subordinate place and sit at the feet of her beautiful sister.