There was a rush of twinkling little feet to meet the young mistress of Wilberlee as she passed slowly through the gateway, and moved into the field, clad in a loose gown of sprayed muslin of palest blue. She swung her hat in one hand that the soft cool air might play about her face, and the rays of the declining sun gleamed upon the auburn tresses, and gave them a golden sheen. A dozen youngsters danced up to her, shouting their childish welcome, and more than one little toddlekin did Dorothy catch up in her arms and kiss. They danced round her as she walked up the field, or clasped her hand to claim her for some favourite game. And Dorothy smiled down upon the uplifted faces, and made feint to run away from them, but was captured and prisoned in their midst. And so, surrounded by bright and happy faces, Dorothy moved about the field, speaking to many, and giving a pleased recognition to all she knew,--and there was not a man or woman of Aenon chapel she did not know, not a worker at her uncle's mill she could not address by name. "As free as th' air, Miss Dorothy is," said one, "but she never demeans herself nor forgets she's th' young mistress." And the hands respected her, the more for it. The working people of the mills knew their place, and were not ashamed of it, nor servile to those above them. They did not care that anyone should assume a familiarity they knew must be feigned and which they were bound to suspect. The Rev. David Jones was in his glory. He had shaken hands with everyone there above the age of thirteen, had inquired about everyone's health as though he loved them, and their pains were his, had narrowly escaped being decoyed into a game at romps, and had looked as though he liked it when a hand-ball knocked off his hat. This did not prevent him confiding to Mrs. Jones, a placid little woman who took life serenely, that he should be glad when it was all over. As the afternoon wore to evening and the pastor, wearied of parading the field and repeating stale vacuities, he saw, with the pleasure we experience when we realize what we had hoped for rather than expected, that young Wimpenny had not forgotten his half-promise of a day or two ago. Wimpenny was speaking to the minister of his own chapel, a meek, timid man, but hard-working, sincere and self-sacrificing, beloved of little children and their mothers, and for whom even the hard-hearted operatives had a good word. The lawyer was not long in making his way towards Mr. Jones. "You see I have been able to come, though I'm afraid I'm a late scholar. Won't you introduce me to Mrs. Jones?" and the introduction was duly made. The three paced together through the changing throng, parted occasionally when some eager urchin, in full cry after the flying ball, darted under the parson's arms or a breathless Daphne, with ringlets streaming in the breeze, fled in simulated fright from a pursuing swain.