Depend upon it, spite of what swells, æsthetes, and cynics may allege to the contrary, mankind in general are grateful for benefits received--the poor almost invariably so--and it will probably be found that those who deny this to be the case have never themselves done anything whatsoever to deserve the gratitude of their fellow-creatures. Little by little, Evelyn’s furniture, books, and pictures, to which were added the possessions of poor Wilfred, were packed up and stowed away in a barn which Mr. Elthorne had placed at her disposal until such time as she should have fixed upon a place of residence, and at last all her arrangements were complete. Her pony, “Mouse,” she had given to her friend Lucy Elthorne, but on the last afternoon at Holmcastle she had arranged to take a solitary ride. It was a warm, but clear day, early in autumn, when Evelyn, mounted upon “Mouse,” and attended by “Floss,” the beautiful brown and white spaniel which had belonged to Wilfred, took her lonely way up one of the lateral valleys which conducted from the main Dale of the Arrow up upon the Moors. Just as she reached the zone where the last signs of cultivation melted into the wilder range of Nature, she encountered the son of one of the small sheep-farmers of the neighbourhood. “Matthew,” cried the young lady, “I do so want, before I leave Holmcastle for ever, once more to get to the top of the Edge to see the sun set; will you come up and hold Mouse, while I scramble up the last part of the way on foot; I shall not keep you long?”