"I don't be--" He stopped, for there was something in his niece's eyes which checked him. "Well, it looks very bad," he said; "and one thing is very evident--he, after a fashion, thinks of you, and he has the impudence to say that you care for him." "Oh!" It was more like a sigh than an ejaculation, and Sage's eyes seemed to contract now with pain. "I've given aunt a good talking to, for she's more to blame than you. She thinks it a fine thing for the parson's boy to be coming hanging about here after you, same as Frank did after Rue, and much good came of it. She had the impudence to tell me that he was a gentleman, while Luke Ross was only a tradesman's son. As if that had anything to do with it. `Look here,' I said to her: `whenever our girl weds, it shall be to some one with a good income, but he shall be a man.' Gentleman, indeed! If Cyril Mallow is a gentleman, let my niece marry a man who is nothing of the sort." Sage's eyes closed, and there was a pitiful, pained expression in her face that told of the agony of her heart. So troubled was her countenance that her uncle was moved to pity, and spoke more tenderly. "I don't like him well enough for you, my girl, even if there were no Luke Ross in the way. I've sent him off to work for thee, like Jacob did for Rachel, and if he's the man I think him, some day he'll come back in good feather, ready to ask thee to be his wife, and you'll neither of you be the worse for a few years' wait." Sage's eyes remained closed. "I was going to scold thee," he said, tenderly, "but my anger's gone, and I'll say but little more, only tell me this--You don't care a bit for this young spark of the Rector's." Sage's face contracted more and more, and the Churchwarden cried, impatiently--"Well, girl, why don't you answer?" She gazed up in his face with a pleading expression of countenance that startled him, and he placed his hands upon her shoulders, and looked fully in her eyes. "Why, Sage!" he cried, "you don't mean--you don't say that you like him instead of Luke?" She covered her face with her hands, and burst out into a violent fit of sobbing. "I don't know, uncle. I don't know." "Don't know!" he cried, angrily. "Pray ask me no more," she cried, as her uncle started from his seat, thrusting back the chair in the act. She crouched down upon the carpet, weeping bitterly, for she did know now, though no pressure would have torn the secret from her heart. PART ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. JOCK MUSES. There was a troubled heart at the rectory as well as at the farm, where Julia Mallow, in spite of having been so far a firm, matter-of-fact girl, had found her meetings with the wheelwright's big ruffianly brother make so strong an impression that although she made a brave effort to cast it all aside as unworthy of her, she was always living under the idea that this man was at her elbow, ready to meet her with his intent, half-mocking gaze.