The thresher was furiously at work as they left the barn without remembering to say another word to him. He swore to himself that the young gentlemen were welcome to try to please pretty girls, if they chose. He had had enough of it. There was nothing to be got but abuse for doing just what they desired. Anne was the next person to be discontented. When she had completely tired herself with attempts to resuscitate Fido, with a vague idea in her mind that she was doing something generous, she came back to her companions, with a heavy heart and a faltering tongue, to tell that poor Fido was irrecoverable. She found Sarah smiling consciously, and looking the picture of happiness, while Miss Cranston’s arm was round her waist, and it was plain that neither of them was in any want of her, or in any distress about Fido. She was about to turn in and scold the thresher, as the most natural way of letting off her wrath, when Miss Cranston called her. “Come, Anne, we want you. You are Sarah’s only sister. We want your leave that she may have another.” “O, Anne!” said her sister, in sorrowful reproach, when Anne silently turned her head away to disperse her tears. “Indeed, I don’t mean——,”—Anne declared,—“I was only taken by surprise. We did not know, Miss Cranston, what it was right to expect,—what you might think——” Miss Cranston did not answer for any one but herself. How matters were to stand with her she did not leave doubtful. If James had taken Sarah to see the new house, and learn her wishes about its arrangements, she could not be wrong in taking Sarah thither once more, to hear what had been planned, and how she might help to advance everybody’s wishes. How rapid are the changes of feeling that all are subject to; and how the most interesting communion of friends may be instantly transformed into a mere contagion of mirth! An exclamation escaped from all the three girls, as a hare burst from the dry ditch beside which they were walking, and made across the field. On passing the barn, she seemed to be taken possession of by a sudden thought. She turned and sprang in upon the very heap of straw on which Sarah and her sister had reposed from their terrors of the chase.—At that moment, two pointers sprang through the hedge, and followed precisely on her track, while Wallace appeared in a gap, and James’s voice was heard behind the fence.