“And you saw there?"--cried Cosmo, who became very much interested. “Plenty of fools,” said Jaacob, “and every wean in the streets jabbering French, which took me mair aback than onything else I heard or saw; but there was ae day a lady passed me by. I didna see her face at first, but I saw the bairn she had in her hand, and I thought to mysel’ I could not but ken the foot, that had a ring upon the path like siller bells. I gaed round about, and round about, till I met her in the face, but whether it was her or no I canna tell; I stood straight afore her in the midroad, and she passed me by with a glance, as if she kent nae me.” The tone in which the little hunchback uttered these words was one of indescribable yet suppressed bitterness. He was too proud to acknowledge his mortification; yet it was clear enough, even to Cosmo, that this pride had not only prevented him from mentioning his chance meeting at the proper time, but that even now he would willingly persuade himself that the ungrateful beauty, who did not recognize him, could not be the lady of his visionary admiration. “Do you think it was the Lady of Melmar?” asked the boy, anxiously, for Jaacob’s “feelings,” though they had no small force of human emotion in them, were, for the moment, rather a secondary matter to Cosmo. “If it had been her, she would have kent _me_,” said Vulcan, with emphasis, and he turned to his hammering with vehemence doubly emphatic. Jaacob had no inclination to be convinced that Mary of Melmar might forget him, who remembered her so well. He returned to the Bill, which was more or less in most people’s thoughts in those days, and which was by no means generally uninteresting to Cosmo--but the boy’s thoughts were too much excited to be amused by Jaacob’s politics; and Cosmo went home with visions in his mind of the quaint little Norman town, where Mary of Melmar had been seen by actual vision, and which henceforth became a region of dreams and fancy to her young knight and champion, who meant to seek her over all the world. CHAPTER XXVIII. Ere the winter had fully arrived, visible changes had taken place in the house and steading of Norlaw. As soon as all the operations of the harvest were over, the Mistress dismissed all the men-servants of the farm, save two, and let, at Martinmas, all the richer portion of the land, which was in good condition, and brought a good rent. Closely following upon the plowmen went Janet, the younger maidservant, who obtained, to her great pride, but doubtful advantage, a place in a great house in the neighborhood.