"Well, but that's what I like. It's the country air makes one feel so young, and I am so, so glad that we are going to stay at home. I want to know the people. Oh, I was tired of the Continent. I want to be free." "Now, Cynthy, what would papa say if he saw you climb up on that gate?" "Don't know--don't care!" "Well, then," said Julia Mallow, smiling, "what, would Lord Artingale say?" "That I was a jolly little girl, and come and sit beside me." "Oh! Cynthy!" "And put his arm round my waist to keep me from falling off. Oh, I say, Ju, he did once, and it was so funny." "Cynthy, I'm ashamed of you," cried her sister, and there was a slight deepening of the colour in her sweet English face. "Well, I am ashamed of myself," cried Cynthia, springing lightly off the gate, and passing her arm round her sister as they walked on along the rutty lane. "But I do feel so happy, Ju. So will you some day, when you meet the special him. Not Perry-Morton though. Ha, ha, ha! How stupid papa is! I say, Ju, though, who shall we go and see? Papa says we are to visit the people a great deal, and get them to know more of us, but I shan't go near any of the horrid Dissenters." "Don't call people horrid because they don't think the same as we do, Cynthy." "Well, but it is horrid. Papa says it's dreadful, the opposition that is in the town. I heard him say to mamma yesterday that he couldn't understand the people a bit, and that though he had now come to settle down amongst them for good, only when we go to town for the season, everybody seemed so independent, and they were all in opposition to him." "Yes, he was talking to Mr Paulby about it at dinner on Tuesday." "Papa is going to improve everything, he says. The place must have been terribly neglected by Mr Paulby. Oh, what a funny little man he is!" "I think him very nice and genuine," said Julia, quietly. "But you mustn't fall in love with him, Ju. He's too old. But I say, what was the real reason of our being away from Lawford so much?" "Money matters," said her sister. "Papa got to be very much behindhand through Frank and Cyril." "Oh, I wish I were a man!" cried Cynthia, with her pretty fair young face flushing. "How I would have whipped those two fellows and made good boys of them! They've half broken poor mamma's heart." "I'm afraid papa indulged them too much," said Julia, quietly, and the two girls walked on for some little distance in silence, enjoying the briskness of the morning air. "Now where are we going?" cried Cynthia suddenly. "Oh, I know. Down that lane leads to the ford, where the wheelwright's is. Let's go and see Polly Morrison." "Shall we?" said her sister, smiling. "Oh, yes. It will be a parochial visit all the same. Only fancy, Polly with a baby! What a little stupid she was to leave us to come back here and marry a wheelwright!" "I don't know," said Julia quietly; "perhaps she is very happy."