Thus it fell out. Let us go back to his earliest days, when he had been accustomed to stop at his uncle's garden-gate to call for his cousin Katy on his way to school. She would come with her school-bag hanging on her arm and singing down the walk as merry as a bird, and hand in hand they would wend their way along the lane to the school-house, where they parted at the porch with a tender but most innocent farewell, she for the girls' class, he for the boys'. On Sundays they stood side by side round the pulpit to recite their catechism--often, however, threatened with a separation, because Martin Gray _would_ prompt Katy. On Sunday evenings in the summer prime they sat beneath the apple-trees in the garden belonging to Martin's bereaved father, and on winter nights it was cheering to see the light glowing on the walls and shining through the cottage casements; for there were the three assembled round the fire, Martin reading to earnest auditors. A sorrowful evening hour it was for Katy, when her cousin parted with her at her own door. Love, and joy, and peace, all departed with him, and she exchanged happiness for the misery of finding her father and mother quarrelling after their return from the alehouse. Morning would chase away the sad thoughts the darkness had brought. Morning brought healing on its wings, for then Katy and Martin were again hand in hand, singing through the lanes, and gathering primroses or crocuses on their way to the school-house. Then Katy "got a place;" her mother thought it a very fine thing indeed, to have her daughter admitted as under-housemaid at the Hall. Katy and her cousin met at church on alternate Sundays, Katy growing smarter and prettier in Martin's eyes every time he saw her; but he began to find out that the dashing valets, who accompanied their showy masters to the Hall, were freely permitted to join him and Katy in their summer evening strolls. He remonstrated. Katy was clever and self-opinionated. She replied that she was not a school-girl; he quizzed the valets; she observed they were _gentlemen_ to him, adding that Mrs White, the housekeeper, thought she demeaned herself by keeping company with such as he; he grew angry, Katy laughed at him, and one of her admirers, passing by, hearing the laugh, paused, stepped up to her, learned the cause of the merry peal, and walked off with her in triumph.