The eyes did not notice me, but sparkled with glee on beholding Sancho, my beautiful black and white setter, that was coursing about the field with its muzzle to the ground. The little creature raised its face and called aloud to the dog. The good-natured animal paused, looked up, and wagged his tail, but made no further advances. The child (a little boy, apparently about five years old) scrambled up to the top of the wall and called again and again; but finding this of no avail, apparently made up his mind, like Mahomet, to go to the mountain" since the mountain would not come to him, and attempted to get over; but a crabbed old cherry tree, that grew hard by, caught him by the frock in one of its crooked, scraggy arms that stretched over the wall. In attempt- mpg to disengage himself, his foot slipped, and down be tumbled--but not to the earth;--the tree still kept him suspended. There was a silent struggle, and then a piercing shriek;--but, in an instant, I had dropped my gun on the grass, and caught the little fellow in arms.

I wiped his eyes with his frock, told him he was all right, and ed Sancho to pacify him. He was just putting his little hand on dog's neck and beginning to smile through his tears, when I heard behind me, a click of the iron gate and a rustle of female garments, and lo! Mrs Graham darted upon me,--her neck uncovered, her black locks streaming in the wind.

`Give me the child!' she said, in a voice scarce louder than a whisper, but with a tone of startling vehemence, and, seizing the boy, she snatched him from me, as if some dire contamination were in my touch, and then stood with one hand firmly Clasping his, the other on his shoulder, fixing upon me her large, luminous, dark eyes--pale, breathless, quivering with agitation.

`I was not harming the child, madam,' said I, scarce knowing whether to be most astonished or displeased; `he was tumbling off the wall there; and I was so fortunate as to catch him, hung suspended headlong from that tree, and prevent I know not what catastrophe.'

`I beg your pardon, sir,' stammered she,--suddenly calming down,--the light of reason seeming to break upon her beclouded spirit and a faint blush mantling on her cheek--`I did not know you;--and I thought--'

She stooped to kiss the child, and fondly clasped her arm round his neck.

`You thought I was going to kidnap your son, I suppose?'

She stroked his head with a half-embarrassed laugh, and replied,--

`I did not know he had attempted to climb the wall.--I have the pleasure of addressing Mr Markham, I believe?' she added, somewhat abruptly.

I bowed, but ventured to ask how she knew me.

`Your sister called here, a few days ago, with Mrs Markham.'

`Is the resemblance so strong then?' I asked, in some surprise, and not so greatly Battered at the idea as I ought to have been.

`There is a likeness about the eyes and complexion, I think,' replied she, somewhat dubiously surveying my face;--`and I think I saw you at church on Sunday.'

I smiled.--There was something either in that smile or the recollections it awakened that was particularly displeasing to her, for she suddenly assumed again that proud, chilly look that had so unspeakably roused my corruption at church--a look of repellent scorn, so easily assumed, and so entirely without the least distortion of a single feature that, while there, it seemed like the natural expression of the face, and was the more provoking to me, because I could not think it affected.


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