It was a very clear, bright, hopeful day; and the breath of the great mountains rose up to heaven, and the undulating breadths of the green country lay fair below the sunshine--peace, and health, and gentle security. Edith Field lifted up her eyes to the pure sky, and sighed--to relieve her full heart not for sorrow; for what very different scenes was she about to exchange these! “Ay, thou wilt go, wilt thou?” said good Dame Dutton, as they reached the level highway. “Well-a-day! young folk are willful; but I would fain ask thee, Mistress Edith, what Master Field will be the better o’ the like o’ thee? a gentle lady-thing, that’s liker a down bed, and a silk mantle, and folk serving thee hand and foot, than aught else. If thou’dst been a handy lass, wi’ an arm like our Raaf’s, and cheeks like the miller’s maiden o’er the fell, thou might’st have thought on’t; but thou, that ever wast liker a lily in a garden than a stout heatherbloom on the hills, that thou should’st stir thee on such an errand! Well-a-day! but I have telled thee; thou know’st my mind.” “But I am strong, dame,” said Edith, tremulously. “Cicely Whitbread at the mill, can work better than I, but she could not bear so well. When we left Hampstead--you do not know what a hard journey it was, Dame Dutton--I was not a burden on my father; he will tell you, if you ask him. I rode behind him for whole days, traveling down to Cumberland, but I never wearied. I never felt myself weak until I was safe in the cottage, and my father away again laboring dangerously, when I could not go forth with him. So you must not speak so to me, Dame Dutton, because I am sure I go justly, and will be no hindrance to my father; and here we are at Thornleigh now, half-way to Carlisle, and you have never told me yet, dame, why this house is so desolate.” “It is none so desolate this fine morning,” said the dame; “thou would’st have me believe, I reckon, that thou did’st not mark the brave gentleman and his train that rode out of the old gate as we came round the shoulder of the fell? Ah! Mistress Edith, thou’s none so still, for all thy sad apparel, as to take no note of young Sir Philip, and his serving-men behind him.” “I thought no one lived here,” said Edith; “and I never saw Sir Philip, dame, that I should know yonder horseman was he.”