HOT CHEEKS AND TEARFUL EYES

It was impossible to send this letter till the next day; yet to quell her uneasiness by getting it out of her hands, and so, as it were, setting the act in motion at once, she arose to take it to any one of the women who might be in the kitchen.

She paused in the passage. A dialogue was going on in the kitchen, and Bathsheba and Troy were the subject of it.

"If he marry her, she'll gie up farming."

"Twill be a gallant life, but may bring some trouble between the mirth -- so say I."

"Well, I wish I had half such a husband."

Bathsheba had too much sense to mind seriously what her servitors said about her; but too much womanly redundance of speech to leave alone what was said till it died the natural death of unminded things. She burst in upon them.

"Who are you speaking of?" she asked.

There was a pause before anybody replied. At last Liddy said frankly," What was passing was a bit of a word about yourself, miss."

"I thought so! Maryann and Liddy and Temperance -- now I forbid you to suppose such things. You know I don't care the least for Mr. Troy -- not I. Everybody knows how much I hate him. -- Yes." repeated the froward young person, "HATE him!"

"We know you do, miss." said Liddy; "and so do we all."

"I hate him too." said Maryann.