‘Yes, just what I d’ say,’ chimed in Mrs. Paddock. ‘His ch’ice was a good ’un. She be a nice body, Mrs. Fiander be.’ ‘Ah!’ agreed the farmer, ‘I d’ ’low she be a nice plain young woman. Her husband have a-proved that he did think his ch’ice a good ’un, for he’ve a-left her everything as he had in the world.’ ‘But not if she marries again, sir, sure?’ cried both the women together. ‘Lard,’ added Mrs. Belbin, ‘he’d never ha’ been sich a sammy as to let her keep everything if she goes for to take another man.’ ‘She be left house and farm, stock and money, onconditional,’ returned Mr. Sharpe emphatically. And he passed on, leaving the gossips aghast. CHAPTER II The time I’ve lost in wooing, In watching and pursuing The light that lies In woman’s eyes, Has been my heart’s undoing. THOMAS MOORE. THE subject of the conversation recently recorded was slowly removing her ‘blacks,’ and laying them carefully away on the lavender-scented shelves in the desolate upper chamber of the home which had suddenly grown so lonely. Divested of the flowing mantle, the tall, well-moulded figure was set off by its close-fitting black robe; and the face, which had been hidden from view by the thick folds of crape, proved able to stand the test of the glaring summer sunshine. The adjective ‘plain,’ applied to the widow by her late husband’s friend, must be taken only in its local sense as signifying ‘simple and straightforward;’ even to the indifferent eyes of this elderly yeoman Rosalie’s beauty had ripened and increased during the four years that had elapsed since her marriage with his friend. The black lashes which shaded her lovely eyes were still wet; the red lips quivered, and the bosom heaved convulsively. Most of the friends and neighbours of the late Mr. Fiander would have been astonished—not to say scandalised—at the sight of such grief. It was quite decent and becoming to cry in church where everybody was looking at you, but to cry when you were alone for an old man of sixty-two—when you had been left in undisputed possession of all his property, and might with perfect impunity marry again at the earliest possible opportunity—it was not only unreasonable and foolish, but rank ingratitude for the most merciful dispensation of Providence. But Mrs. Fiander continued to sob to herself, and to look blankly round the empty room, and out at the wide fields where the familiar figure had been wont to roam; and when, taking the new widow’s cap from its box, she arranged it on the top of her abundant hair, she could not repress a fresh gush of tears. ‘Poor Fiander!’ she said to herself, ‘he would n’t let me wear it if he knew. It makes me a perfect fright, and is so cumbersome and so much in the way. But I’ll wear it all the same. Nobody shall say I’m wanting in respect to his memory. Dear, dear, not a week gone yet! It seems more like a year.’