She knew, with a woman’s intuition, that he was not entirely blind to her beauty. His eye rested on her with the same searching and affectionate gaze with which it might linger on a “beautiful bit,” as the technical phrase runs; and the light in her eyes and the changes in her expression, as the varying moods flitted over her face, were to him as the cloud shadows chasing each other over Barningham Moor, or the sunlight glinting in the brown pools of the Greta where it was deepest. It was something, but not enough. A woman does not care to be looked at as if she were a landscape by the man whom she passionately loves. She longed to draw from him some personal expression of admiration; but, beyond an occasional “Well done!” upon the performance of some unusually agile feat of climbing, she was always disappointed. Others noticed the improvement in her looks and health and told her of it. “On my word, Miss,” remarked the landlady of the “Heather Bell” to her, one afternoon, when she was “learning her,” by a course of practical demonstration, to make the cake of the country, “ye’re fair credit to the ‘Heather Bell!’ Ye look twice the woman ye did when ye first comed here, not near so peaked and piny like! I’ll be bound the gentleman thinks so, too! Eh, we shall see what we shall see!” “What shall we see, Mrs. Watson?” asked Mrs. Elles, complaisantly, leaning her elbows on the floury table. She was always most susceptible to any kind of compliment, and to do her justice, she had no idea of the woman’s meaning. “You and he will be setting up together, one of these fine days! Eh, I see what I see! I’m none blind, honey.” “Nonsense, Mrs. Watson!” “Nae nonsense at all! He tak’s a good deal o’ notish on ye, I consider. I was just a-saying sae to oor Jane Anne later than yesterday. Sorrow befaa’ my tongue--she’s fair upset aboot it, I can tell ye!” “Jane Anne! Upset?” “Ay, sure, who but Jane Anne Cawthorne? She’s got a bit fancy for Mr. Rivers hersel’, ye mun knaw. She sends a’ the ither lads away on his account, he that’s never thinkin’ of her! I whiles say to her, ‘Hout, lass, he’ll never tak’ that much notice on ye, beyond lending ye some beuk ye’s a deal better without.’ I don’t hold wi’ readin’, mysel’, he knaw. But the fond lass shakes her head and says nowt, and throws away the bonny flowers ye put in his glass, and sets some on her own pickin’ there.” “Yes, I have noticed that,” said Mrs. Elles sharply. “And I’ll wager he’s niver so much as gien her a chuck on the chin, for all she’s walk barefoot to Barney Cassel and back for him. Eh, it’s you that’s got him. Mistress Popham was axing me, only the other day, when ye was going to get the vicar to call ye?” “Call us! What’s that?” “Ask ye; call the banns in church. Eh, that’ll be a grand day for us all. Noo, there’s a bonny cake,” she ended, clapping it on to the “girdle,” “and you and he can have it cold to your teas.”