Cilla of the Good Intent, meanwhile, after crossing the croft in safely and giving her owl’s call to Reuben, had gone indoors. Yeoman Hirst was sitting by the fire--it was rarely so warm in Garth, but what a fire o’ nights was pleasant--and he was nursing a long clay pipe in his hand. He had been counting his gains in live stock during this wonderful propitious lambing-time; but he looked up quickly as Priscilla entered, and in his glance there was that close-seated affection which proved Cilla right when she had said that “father would know if an eyelash lay out of its own proper place.” “Look’st brave and well, Cilla!” was his greeting. “Got the wind to your cheeks, eh? Now, I do begin to think, spite o’ being your father, that you’ve some claim to winsomeness.” Priscilla was not so happy as she had been a moment since. This steady warmth of greeting seemed out of keeping with the quick, random happiness she had seized by stealth to-night. It had in it something of the security she had missed in Reuben’s wooing. “Ah, shame to go spoiling your own lass, father!” she answered. “And see, you have no horn of ale beside you.” “Not like to have till you come to fill it. I must be getting old and daft, Cilla, for I cannot rightly taste the wholesome bitter in my evening draught, unless you come and fill it.” She busied herself to fill the horn from the cask of October ale which stood in the outer kitchen. In outward seeming she was the same Cilla as of old--capable and gentle, wholesome to look at, and careful of a good man’s wants; yet until now she had never known what it meant to hold any but a trifling secret from her father. “Now, sit ye down, Cilla,” said Hirst, after a quiet pull at his ale. “Sit ye down, and tell me all about your day at Keta’s Well. I’m in good humour, lass. Been thinking, lass, while you tarried shamefully, that never was such a lambing-time in Garth. These Scotch ewes are bonnie to see--like ’em best of all, for my part--but they seldom drop two lambs. Seems there’s a fairy-wand about, Cilla. I go to bed o’ night, and hear the lark whistle me up next morning, and go up the pastures, like--and there’s another ewe twinned lambs. The lan’s fair white wi’ the wee beasties.” It was Priscilla’s unrest that answered, and the words slipped from her unawares. “You’re boasting in April, father, and I’ve heard that wise folk never boast till May is out--and seldom then.” The farmer ran his hand along the arm of his high-backed chair, in token of his faith that touching wood was a sure antidote to pride. “There, you’re a lile, trim farmer’s wife already, Cilla!” he cried. “Wouldn’t you trust even such a weather-time as this?” Cilla thought of to-night’s wooing weather, of how little, after all, she trusted it. “I’ve seen a foot of snow in May, father,” she answered.