JUST fifty years ago, one Tom Treva lived on a small lone tenement near the foot of Carn Kenidjack hill. He had a large family and disliked for any of them to go in service. The boys, as they grew up, worked in the mines, and helped about the tillage of their few acres of crofts 'out of core.' The eldest daughter, Grace, remained at home to assist her mother, who took pride in making her handy in doing all such simple work as was required in their humble household. But as it was hard for them to make both ends meet, the poor girl had no best clothes except such as were made out of old gowns which had belonged to her grandmother. These were very gay, to be sure, yet so old-fashioned that other maidens, who worked at the mines and procured more modish dresses, wouldn't be seen anywhere from home with Grace and her grammer's old gowns. She didn't much mind their company, however. Her mother and 'the boys' (her brothers) promised her, year after year, that against the next Feasten-tide, if they could only lay by a few shillings, they would buy her as smart a rig-out as any of the proud hussies could show. But, with so many mouths to be fed, it was hard for them to save a farthing. So tides came and went, and Grace "had nothing for bettermost wear that was fit to be seen in Church-town or anywhere else from home," so the bal-maidens said, and they "wouldn't be seen going to preaching or to games with her;" yet she didn't mind it much, and seemed contented enough to stay at home, in the evenings listening to old stories related by her father and others who[174] gathered round his hearth, because they, too, were not rich or smart enow to follow the fashions then upsetting all old customs among such Santusters as 'got a sturt to bal.' Grace would go about her work, indoors and out, singing like a lark. She was nearly sixteen, when a cousin of about her own age, who had been away only a year in farmer's service, a few miles off, came to see them the next Feast, dressed out quite like a lady, to Grace's seeming; for she wore a blue shining dress and earrings, and necklaces of red, green, and yellow beads that she changed more than once a day, or wore them altogether, while the flowers in her bonnet were the admiration of all beholders. "I should be glad, cousin Grace," said she, "to put thee up to Church-town to the fiddler a Monday night, and wish I had only brought home one of my frocks for thee to wear; but really, cheeld, grammer's old gowns would make thee a laughing-stock to the youngsters, and not one of them would dance with us. Go thee way'st in service, cheeld, that thee may'st get a stock of clothes fit to be seen in, and a sweetheart that thee west soon want to have as well as other maidens! But the Lord help thee and the young fellow who would come a courting and take thee to Morvah Fair even in that old rorey-torey gown, with red and blue flowers so large that the birds are nesting in them."