Towards the end of the meal a young and susceptible preacher caught sight of the girl, and without ceremony opened a conversation with her. Turning to his host he asked: "And who is this fair damsel?" "Who? where?" said Essec Powell, looking surprised. "Oh! that's my niece Valmai; she is living with me since Robert my brother is dead." "Well, indeed! You will be coming to the meetings, I suppose?" "Yes," said Valmai, "I have been there all day; the singing was lovely!" "And what did you think of the preaching?" said a very fat man, in a startlingly bass voice. He was carving a fowl. "That is the important point," he said, and the wing came off unexpectedly. "Young people are apt to think most of the singing," here he re-captured the wing and landed it safely on his own plate. "Did you hear my sermon?" he asked, between the mouthfuls of the fast disappearing wing, fixing his eyes upon poor Valmai, who began to wish herself under the elder bushes again. "My text was--" but fortunately here the company rose. After a long grace they dispersed, and turned their faces once more towards the sloping field. No one noticed Valmai--no one remembered her in the hurry to return to the preaching field--no one, she thought, would know or care whether she was present or not; and as she drew on her gloves and tied on her broad-brimmed straw hat, there was a little sadness in the curves of her mouth, a little moisture in the deep blue eyes, as alone she took her way after the preachers to the hillside. As she went she recalled the last open-air meeting she had attended, nearly two years ago, in that far-off land, where her father and mother had walked with her in loving companionship, when she had been the centre of their joys and the light of their home, and as she followed the winding path, hymn-book in hand, her heart went back in longing throbs to the father and mother and the old home under the foreign sky, where love had folded her in its warm embrace; but now--she was alone! no one noticed whether she came or went, and as groups and families passed her, wending their way to the hillside, she answered their nods and greetings with pleasant kindliness, but still found herself alone! "It will always be like this now; I must learn to go alone. What can I expect when my father and mother are dead? there is no one else to care for me!" She reached the crowded field, and ought to have made her way into the front rows near the platform where she might easily have found a seat, but Valmai was shy and retiring, and seeing there was no settled place for her, kept on the outskirts of the crowd, and at last found herself on the piece of uncultivated ground which bordered the corner of the Vicar's long meadow. She seated herself on the heather at the top of the bank, the sea wind blowing round her, and tossing and tumbling the golden curls which fell so luxuriantly under her hat.