boys"--an assertion which certainly could not be contradicted--and went on spinning as before. The amazement of Isoult Avery--who had not previously visited home for some time--was intense. Her childhood had been a scene of obedience, both active and passive; a birch-rod had hung behind the front door, and nobody had ever known Anne Barry hesitate to whip a child, if there were the slightest chance that he or she deserved it: the "benefit of the doubt" being commonly given on the side of the birch-rod. And now, to see these boys--wild men of the woods as they were--rush unreproached up to the inaccessible side of Grandmother, lay violent hands upon her inviolable hood, kiss her as if they were thinking of eating her, and never meet with any worse penalty than a fig-cake [the Devonshire name for a plum-cake]--this was the source of endless astonishment and reflection to Isoult. On the whole, she congratulated herself that she had left Kate and Walter at Bradmond. The bride was a stranger to Isoult. She talked to Bessy about her, and found that lady rather looked down upon her. "She was all very well, but--" Ah, these unended _buts_! what mischief they make in this world of ours! Then Isoult talked to Hugh, and found that if his description were to be trusted, Alice Wikes would be no woman at all, but an angel from Heaven. Bessy offered to take her sister to visit the bride, and Isoult accepted the offer. Meanwhile, she sketched a mental portrait of Alice. She would be short, and round-faced, and merry: the colour of her hair and eyes Isoult discreetly left blank. So, three days before the wedding, her future sisters-in-law called upon the bride. They found Alice's mother, Mrs Wikes, busy with her embroidery; and as soon as she saw who her guests were, she desired Mrs Alice to be summoned. After a little chat with Mrs Wikes upon things in general, the door opened to admit a girl the exact opposite of Isoult's imaginary picture. Alice proved tall, oval-faced, and grave. The wedding was three days later, and on Sunday. Blue was the colour of the bride's costume, and favel-colour--a bright yellowish-brown--that of the bridesmaids. After the ceremony there was a banquet at Wynscote, and dancing, and a Maypole, and a soaped pig, and barley-break--an old athletic sport, to some extent resembling prisoner's base. Then came supper, and the evening closed with hot cockles and blind-hoodman--the latter being blindman's buff. And among all the company, to none but John and Isoult Avery did it ever occur that in these occupations there was the least incongruity with the Sabbath day. For they only were Gospellers; and at that time the Gospellers alone remembered to keep it holy. Rome strikes her pen through the third and fourth commandments, if less notoriously, yet quite as really, as through the second.