Out came Judith Olliver, in her brown stuff gown and checked apron, a small three-cornered plaid shawl across her shoulders, and with her white hair neatly gathered beneath a cap of white muslin, double frilled and tied beneath the dimpled chin--as comely and motherly an old cottager as you could wish to see. “Dear heart,” said Mrs. Olliver, as Lucy kissed her cheek, looking on the bright girl in unconstrained admiration, “Can this be little Lucy Blyth?” At that moment a fine, tall, gentlemanly youth of some two-and-twenty summers, paused as he passed the garden gate. Turning his open handsome face toward the speaker, his eyes fell on the radiant beauty of the blacksmith’s daughter; he recognised the features of his childish “sweetheart” with a thrill of something more than wonder, and, resuming his walk, “Master Philip” repeated again and again Judith Olliver’s inquiry, “Can this be little Lucy Blyth?” CHAPTER V. “BLACK MORRIS.” “What dreadful havoc in the human breast The passions make, when, unconfined and mad, They burst, unguided by the mental eye, The light of reason, which, in various ways, Points them to good, or turns them back from ill.” _Thompson._ At the opposite end of the village to that where Nathan Blyth resided, there was a cluster of small tumble-down cottages, whose ragged thatch, patched windows, and generally forlorn appearance denoted the unthrifty and “unchancy” character of their occupants. This disreputable addendum to the charming village of Nestleton was known as Midden Harbour, a very apt description in itself of the unsavoury character of its surroundings, and the unpleasant manners and customs of most of the denizens of that locality. Squire Fuller had often tried to purchase this unpleasant blotch, which lay in the centre of his own trim and well-managed estate. Its owner, however, old Kasper Crabtree, a waspish dog-in-the-manger kind of fellow, could not be induced to sell it. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that “Crabby,” as the villagers fitly called him, found sincere gratification in the fact that the property and its possessors were a universal nuisance, for Crabby was one of that numerous family of social Ishmaelites whose hand was against every man, and so every man’s hand and tongue were against him.