"Very true, but there are polite people who have called woman a goddess," observed Alice.

Very well put in, Alley !" cried Letty, gaily, "only we must admit they haven't said of wisdom." She added, "I shall run over to Betty Kedge's, and see what is the matter."

She was tripping off alone, but Harry followed, and they entered the cottage together. Meanwhile, Alice came to the waggon, and was walking round, when she suddenly confronted Jack Reeve, who, it now appeared, was in charge of the team.

ઃઃ

Oh, is it you, Jack!" Alice cried. “I am afraid there has been an accident."

"There's worse happens at sea, Miss Alley," answered Jack. "It's only Jem Stone, who fell down with heat, and Balders has took him over to old Bet, for she looked at him as we came in the field, and they think she's bewitched him."

"Perhaps she has, the wicked thing!" exclaimed Alice, who detested Bet.

"Not a bit of it, Miss! The day's gone by for old Bet to bewitch, you may depend.

If it had been you, now, who looked, or Miss Letty, you might bewitch Jem, or any other man, and nobody 'ud object."

"That is one of your fine speeches, Jack, which I hear you are famous for."

"Then some one has been talking to you against my character, Missy?"

"Yes. I was told you would persuade us that we were made all of sugar, if we would believe you."

"I believe it myself, sometimes," observed Jack, with a look that intimated the present was an occasion in point.

66

'I am afraid we should be eaten if it was true," smiled Alice, "and we might even take to eating one another."

"There's where it is, Missy; you go against your own selves: begging pardon for my being plain spoken, and, of course, excepting present company.

"That won't do. I know you mean all of us."

"Not present company, Miss Alley; only I never praise to the face."

"A very wholesome rule, John," cried

Mr. Wingfield, coming up; "and I quite agree with you about it."

"You are sure not to agree with me," smiled Alice, to put him to torture.

"That is giving me a bad name, indeed," cried the Pastor. "Is there anybody who can't agree with you?"

"They must be particular quarrelsome if there is, Minister," remarked Jack, "and that isn't your description."

"I don't say we ever quarrel," observed Alice, sweetly. "It is only that I and Mr. Wingfield are not always of the same way of thinking."

"Naturally the Minister has his own notions, Missy," remarked Jack, coming to the Pastor's rescue; "and it's just as natural yours 'ud be different, and there's a deal to be said on both sides. But I'll be bound Minister is beat before the talk's over; and if he's anything like me (and we're all the same stuff at bottom) he'd sooner lose than win."

"You speak better for me than I could for myself, John," said Mr. Wingfield with

a beaming look. "And here come our friends. What have they been doing in the cottage ?"

The explanation claims a new chapter.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE WISE WOMAN.

BETTY KEDGE'S cottage was one of those thatched, whitewashed structures, so numerous in rural districts, which, from their wigwam roofs, appear to have been erected when the people of England were in the stage of development now occupied by the North American Indians. Such habitations were probably suited to that time, but they are a little too primitive for the present day, when we are beginning to appreciate ventilation, cleanliness, and domestic order. Not that this reason weighed with Mr. Granby in allowing the wigwams on his property to tumble to pieces. His object was less to , get rid of the tenements than their tenants,