I saw Walter for a few minutes, and then not alone. It was better so; yet did my heart yearn for a word, as I am sure his did also. He hath since told me, he dared not trust himself to speak lest he should say too much. Our eyes did meet and speak; we could not help that. Oh, how much have they to answer for, who oppress men's hearts and consciences by making that to be sin which the Word of God never made so; who bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders, and will not so much as touch them with one of their fingers! Our hands met in one long clasp as he helped me to my litter. I never thought to see him again, for I had heard that he meant speedily to return to his home in the west. The last farewell was said, and I lost sight of Sussex House never to enter its doors again. [Illustration] CHAPTER XI. THE DUKE'S RING. I ARRIVED at Holworthy farm about noon, weary enough with my journey and all the excitement I had gone through, so that I was fain to go at once to my chamber. I was really too ill to take much notice of any thing for a day or two, and my aunt was a good deal alarmed for me, but by degrees, I recovered myself, and began to sit up and to go out into the sitting-room which had been fitted up for me. I found it full of tokens of kindness from the friends I had left behind me. There was the clavichord which I had used at Sussex House, with a pile of music books beside it, my embroidery frame, and a heap of silks, and the like, books in Latin and French, and even a box of comfits and dried fruits from old Harry Cook—so good were they all in remembering me. I found the farmer and his wife very little changed, save that Hannah's apple cheeks were a little wrinkled by the same frost which had whitened her husband's looks. Dolly was still at home, a widow now with a sweet little boy and girl, the pets and darlings of both gaffer and gammer. Matters had prospered with this good couple, and they were rich for people in their station, but they were content with their old simple ways, and did not ape the manners of their betters as is the fashion now-a-days. You would never find Hannah Yates lying in bed till after five of the clock and putting off her dinner hour till eleven. No; she was up and stirring, and had every one else busy by four, and the dinner was on the table before the stroke of nine—master and mistress, men and maids all eating together in the great kitchen, and gathering about the same hearth in the winter evenings. Hannah would fain have served us with a separate table, but this we would by no means allow, and I think she liked us, after all, better for the refusal.