comrade, looking like a dainty yacht beside a man o' war, and, as I'm a sinner, Jim had his left arm about Ruth's shoulders --he'd have had to go on to his knees to clasp her waist--and her little brown hand nestled confidingly in Jim's big fist. I was so taken aback that I merely gasped and lay still resolving however that if it should please the good Lord to lift me off that bed of pain. I'd give Ruth at large my views as to what was fitting for a maiden who was a full and dipped member at Pole Chapel, its minister's daughter, and the sister to boot, of a decent lad who, for aught she knew or seemed to care, might at that very moment when she sat billing and cooing be at death's door; a mere chit of a girl, I communed inwardly with myself, old enough, for sure, old enough to wait on me and be her old fathers nurse, but certainly not old enough to be casting her mind man-wards--though a quick afterthought reminded me she was Miriam's age to a month or two; but then, that was up another street. "Tell us all about it again, Ruth," I heard Jim say. "Start reight at th' beginning, like th' Meltham singers. I could hearken to thee talkin' fro' th' peep o' day to sundown. Tha's getten a voice like a linnet." "He should hear Miriam," I thought to myself. "Ruth's voice, indeed!" "Well, get away to th' other end of th' settle," quoth Ruth. "What do you want scrouging me up in a corner like this?" "Aw thowt happen you were cowd," says Jim with a grin. "Well, I'm not, and besides, there's a fire, and whatever would father think if he came upstairs; and there's Abe--who knows but what unconscious folk have got their senses about them unbeknown to us. I wouldn't have Abe know for all I can see. He'd just plague my life out." "Oh! don't mind me," I said inwardly. "I'll get on wi' mi deein', thee get on wi' thi courtin'." "Well, it was this way," began Ruth, after Jim had hutched his burly form about an inch towards the other end of the settle, though he still clung to Ruth's hand in a perfectly idiotic manner. Whatever sort of pleasure could he find in the touch of Ruth's soft fingers? If they'd been Miriam's now!