might fairly perceive, the one what manner of man, the other what manner of woman, we were. And I laughed softly in myself to think at what advantage I held him. For him I should surely know among a thousand, while he--well, it would be as it should fall. For, knowing as I knew him, I was sure that if at all he remembered me, he had doubtless all those years been holding still in his inner eye the picture of a little, ugly, and ill-kempt hoyden. And I laughed again, and wondered why I laughed, finding my mind something of a puzzle to itself. For, while I knew I was no longer ill to look upon, I found my face grow hot at the thought of Ned's eyes on me, which before I had never done. It was then upon the Tuesday that we heard the great news; upon the Wednesday that Mr. Kidd, at the instance of Sir Michael, rode off Exeter way to hear more. And so, in suspense little relieved by further and growing rumor, we waited until the Saturday, when about five in the afternoon Prudence, ever on the watch, was the first to spy her lover as he rode up the avenue. His horse was caked over with mud to the very girths, for the roads were foul with long and heavy rains. Nor had the mud spared the rider; but the soil borne by the two was as nothing to the weight of mystery and the burden of importance that I marked in Farmer Kidd's bearing as he flung himself from the saddle, and, brushing by little Prue with the briefest of nods, strode big with news to the little parlor beyond the hall, where Sir Michael did use to sit of an evening. And then, as I looked from the window of the hall where I sat, I knew from her face that Prudence would surely wed him some day, but first would make the rude fellow most bitterly repent that slight of counting her next to politics and warfare.