“You can’t do better than go right up to her and ask her to be yours’now. Everything is in your favour. Folk talk a pass’l of nonsense and spiteful lies about her. It makes her cruel unhappy. She’s been doing little else but cry for some days. You show her you don’t mind one snap what folks say, and you don’t believe a word o’ the lies against her, and I tell you she’d jump into your arms. It’s my belief that the schoolmaster turned nasty’that he began to show her he thought there might be something in it, that he knew people said they’d take away their subscription if he married her, and he made it so unpleasant for Kitty that she gave him up. And now you march in and conquer.” “I’ll do so,” said Noah. “And,” pursued Rose, “you must begin by making Kitty cry; that’s the preparing of the ground.” “How am I to do that?” “Talk about her father. Ask if she has heard any news of him.” “Why? it don’t seem kind to make her cry.” “What a noodle you are, Noah! Nothing is more profitable for what you intend than to get her into a crying mood, regular soft and tender, and then pity her about her father, and so out with it when she is in tears. That’s the way to win her!” Noah mused awhile, walking by the side of Rose, in silence. After a minute he said, “What is your notion, Rose? I mean about Jason Quarm. Is he dead or not?” “Of course he is. Burnt to ashes.” “But the ashes were not found.” “My dear Noah, you saw the fire as well as I; you know with what fury it burnt, and how it lasted three days. He was no Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego all pounded into one.” “You really think he is dead?” “Sure of it. Would he not have turned up and let folk know he was alive, if he had not perished? Would he have allowed Kitty to go on’and not Kitty only, his sister Zerah as well’all this long time, suffering and miserable, because they believe he died a terrible death, if he could relieve their minds by a letter, or, better still, by appearing?” Suddenly Rose started, caught her cousin by the arm, and drew back. “What is the matter?” asked the young man. “There is something there’moving’in the hedge.” They were in a true Devonshire lane, with the hedges high on each side, planted with trees that extended their branches overhead, almost interlocking. Through the boughs and leaves the grey sky glimmered, and the soil in the lane here and there showed in the light from above, but all was indistinct and dark. A turn in the lane, and a fork beyond the turn, lay before them, and through one of the lanes the light of the estuary reflecting the sky made a partial gleam, as though that lane were a tube with ground glass at the end. Both remained motionless and listened. “Hark!” whispered Rose; “did you hear something?” “I heard you speaking.” “Before I spoke’a clitter, as of a foot on stones.” “Well, what of that? This is a road, and people may go along it, I reckon.”