"Well, I forgive you," he says, as she steps into her low phaeton, and he arranges the rug carefully around her. "Though you don't deserve it. (What ridiculous little hands to guide such refractory ponies!) Sure you are quite comfortable? Well, good-by; and look here,"--teasingly,--"I should think it over if I were you. You may not get so excellent a chance again; and Arthur will never forgive you." "Your uncle, though charming, and a very dear, is also a goose," says Miss Peyton, somewhat irreverently. "Marry you, indeed! Why, I should quite as soon dream of marrying my brother!" "Well, as I can't be your husband, it would be rather nice to be your brother," says Mr. Branscombe, cheerfully. "Your words give me hope that you regard me in that light. I shall always think of you for the future as my sister, and so I am sure"--with an eloquent and rather mischievous pause--"will Horace!" Miss Peyton blushes again,--much more vividly this time,--and, gathering up the reins hastily, says "good-by" for the second time, without turning her flushed face to his, and drives rapidly up the avenue. Branscombe stands on the steps watching her until she is quite lost to sight behind the rhododendrons, and then strokes his moustache thoughtfully. "That has quite arranged itself, I should fancy," he says, slowly. "Well, I hope he will be very good to her, dear little thing!" CHAPTER II. "Her form was fresher than the morning rose When the dew wets its leaves."--THOMSON. Pullingham-on-the-Moors is a small, untidy, picturesque little village, situated on the side of a hill. It boasts a railway-station, a police-barrack, a solitary hotel, and two or three well-sized shops. It is old-fashioned, stationary, and, as a rule, hopelessly harmless, though now and then, dissensions, based principally on religious grounds, will arise. These can scarcely be avoided, as one-half of the parish trips lightly after Mr. Redmond, the vicar (who has a subdued passion for wax candles, and a craving for floral decorations), and looks with scorn upon the other half, as, with solemn step and slow, it descends the high hill that leads, each Sabbath, to the "Methody" Chapel beneath. It never grows older, this village, and never younger; is seldom cast down or elated, surprised or demonstrative, about anything. In a quaint, sleepy fashion, it has its dissipations, and acknowledges its festive seasons,--such as Christmas-tide when all the shops burst into a general bloom of colored cards, and February, when valentines adorn every pane. It has also its fair days, when fat cattle and lean sugar-sticks seem to be everywhere.