"I be very nigh done now, missis," cried Caines jubilantly; "there be but a little bit more. I did sit and stare at en when he did say his sweetheart hadn't no hair, and at last I did ax en the question straight out, 'How old mid she be when you did last see her?' 'About two months,' says he. Ho, ho, ho! 'About two months!' Yes, I've a-been away from England a good bit, an' when I left her she hadn't a hair on her head, nor yet a tooth in her mouth.' And the two of us did laugh and laugh till we did very nigh bust our bandages." "'Twas the little maid I did mean," explained Dick, as his mother still stared gapingly from one to the other. "'Twas my little maid as I was a-thinkin' on when I did lie on that there wold stretcher what I did think I should never leave again. I did think o' she and wonder what 'ud become o' she if doctor couldn't make a job o' me. Come here, Tilly. You be daddy's little sweetheart, bain't ye?" The child ran to him, and climbed upon his knee, and he passed his hand proudly through her mass of yellow curls. "See here, mate; plenty o' hair here now." He gathered up the thick locks half absently, twisting them clumsily into a kind of knot, and, throwing back his head, surveyed her pensively for a moment; then he kissed her just at the nape of the neck, and let the curls drop again with a sigh. Mrs. Baverstock's beady eyes became momentarily dim; she did not possess by nature a very large amount of intuition, but love is a wonderful sharpener of wits. "Dear, yes," she said. "She be the very pictur' of her mother." Then, suddenly bursting out laughing and clapping her hands together, "So that were the girl ye left behind ye!" [Illustration: THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM 'So that were the girl ye left behind ye'] ELLENEY Mrs. McNally's house was situated at the extreme end of the village, and looked not upon the street, but right out into the glen, so that when Elleney opened her attic window in the morning her blue eyes feasted on a wilderness of trees, exquisite at this season with an infinite variety of tints; for the tender bloom of an Irish spring is only surpassed in beauty by the glories of an Irish autumn. The undulating masses that would in October glow with a myriad fires were now clad in the colours of the opal, delicate pinks and blues and greys of yet unopened buds forming a background to the pure vigorous green of larch or chestnut in full leaf, while here and there a group of wild cherry-trees--trees which in a few months would be clothed in the hues of the sunset--caught the morning light now on raiment as snowy as the summit of the Jungfrau. Elleney gazed, and rubbed big eyes yet heavy with slumber, and gazed again; then she heaved a deep sigh, half of rapture, half of regret.