Eve did not answer: perhaps she had not heard, as she was just now engaged in shifting her position so as to escape the dazzling rays of the sun, which came pouring down on her head. The movement seemed to awaken her to a sense of the day's unusual brightness, and, getting up, she went to the window and looked out. "Isn't it like summer?" she said, speaking more to herself than to Jerrem. "I really must say I should like to have gone somewhere for a walk." The words, simple in themselves, flung in their tone a whole volume of reproach at Adam, for to Eve's exacting mind there could be no necessity urgent enough to take Adam away without ever seeing her or leaving a message for her. "Well, come out with me," said Jerrem: "there's nothin' I should like better than a bit of a stroll. I'd got it in my head before you spoke." Eve hesitated. "P'r'aps you'm thinkin' Adam 'ud blame 'ee for it?" "Oh dear, no, I'm not: I'm not quite such a slave to Adam's opinion as that. Besides," she added, feeling she was speaking, with undue asperity, "surely everybody may go for a walk without being blamed by anybody for it: at all events, I mean to go." "That's right," said Jerrem.--"Here, I say, Joan, me and Eve's goin' out for a little." "Goin' out? Where to?" said Joan, coming forward toward the door, to which he had advanced. "Oh, round about for a bit--by Chapel Rock and out that ways." "Well, if you goes with her, mind you comes back with her. D'ee hear, now?--Don't 'ee trust un out o' yer sight, Eve, my dear--not further than you can see un, nor so far if you can help it." "You mind yer own business," said Jerrem. "If you was to do that you'd stay at home, then," said Joan, dropping her voice; "but that's you all over, tryin' to put your finger into somebody's else's pie.--I doubt whether 'twill over-please Adam either," she added, coming back from watching them down the street; "but, there! if he and Eve's to sail in one boat, the sooner he learns 'twon't always be his turn to handle the tiller the better." * * * * * It was getting on for three o'clock when Adam, having completed all the business he could accomplish on that day, was returning home. He had been to the few gentlemen's houses near, had visited most of the large farms around, and had found a good many customers ready to relieve him of a considerable portion of the spirit which, by reason of their living so near at hand, would thus evade much of the danger attendant on a more distant transfer. Every one had heard of the recent attack on the Lottery, and much sympathy was expressed and many congratulations were tendered on account of their happy escape.