“Well, and very like she was,” said Simon magnanimously. “I think the money what was saved out o’ the man’s wage did ought to go to the man’s folk. You’ve the best right to that there stockin’, Miss Rosy, and I’ll not bide here to stand in your light.” This was heaping coals of fire on Rosy’s pretty head with a vengeance. She looked up in Simon’s face with a smile, though there were tears in her eyes, and she impulsively dropped the carpet and held out two little sunburnt hands. “Oh, please, Mr. Fry,” she said pleadingly, “please, Simon, do stay--do ’ee now. I’ll--I’ll--I’ll never be unkind again!” “Is that a true promise, my maid?” asked Simon very tenderly. Mrs. Melmouth, chancing at that moment to emerge from her house with the view of ascertaining how the young folks’ labours were progressing, discovered them standing in this most compromising attitude; Simon clasping both Rosy’s hands, Rosy looking earnestly into his face; and thereupon, true to her instincts, rated the couple soundly for their idleness. In two minutes Rosy had returned to her carpet with a flaming face, and Simon was walking slowly towards the potato-plot. As their aunt, still full of virtuous indignation, was returning to the house, her nephew’s tones fell distinctly on her ear:-- “How would it be if I was to give you a hand wi’ they things first, my maid, and then you could be helping me wi’ the sets?” “Well, I declare,” commented Mrs. Melmouth, stopping short, “I believe they’ve started coortin’. It do really seem like it. Well, I never!” She was turning about in preparation for a fresh outpouring of wrath, when she was struck by a sudden idea, and paused just as Rosy, with a nervous glance towards herself, walked sheepishly up to Simon, trailing the carpet behind her. “We’d certainly get on much faster,” she said, speaking ostensibly to Simon, but really for her aunt’s benefit. “I d’ ’low ye would,” said Mrs. Melmouth; and suddenly her brow cleared, and she turned once more to go indoors with a good-humoured smile. “I d’ ’low you’ll get on fast enough--wi’ the coortin’. But that ’ud be the best way o’ settlin’ it,” she added to herself--“I’ll leave the wold stockin’ in a lump to ’em both.” A WOODLAND IDYLL. It was the first Monday of August; the shops were shut in the little town of Branston, but life in the neighbouring villages was more astir than usual, for the men were for the most part working in their gardens and the women stood at their doorways or by their gates to view the passing vehicles. These were not so numerous after all--one might never have known it was a Bank Holiday--yet every now and then a brake or a wagonette laden with noisy folk rattled by, leaving a trail of dust to mark its progress that lingered in a kind of cloud about the hedgerows long after it had passed.