will neither be patronized nor misled for no man’s pleasure. I’ve had overtures made to me lately that I saw were treacherous, and I flung ’em back i’ the faces o’ them that offered ’em.’

‘You won’t tell us what overtures?’

‘I will not; it would do no good: it would mak’ no difference: them they concerned can look after their-sel’n.’

‘Ay, we’se look after wersel’n,’ said another voice.

Joe Scott had sauntered forth from the church to get a breath of fresh air, and there he stood.

‘I’ll warrant ye, Joe,’ observed William, smiling.

‘And I’ll warrant my maister,’ was the answer. ‘Young ladies,’ continued Joe, assuming a lordly air, ye’d better go into th’ house.’

‘I wonder what for?’ inquired Shirley, to whom the overlooker’s somewhat pragmatical manners were familiar, and who was often at war with him; for Joe, holding supercilious theories about women in general, resented greatly, in his secret soul, the fact of his master and his master’s mill being, in a manner, under petticoat government, and had felt as wormwood and gall certain business-visits of the heiress to the Hollow’s counting-house.

‘Because there is nought agate that fits women to be consarned in.’

‘Indeed! There is prayer and preaching agate in that church; are we not concerned in that?’

‘Ye have been present neither at the prayer nor preaching, ma’am, if I have observed aright. What I alluded to was politics; William Farren, here, was touching on that subject, if I’m not mista’en.’

‘Well, what then? Politics are our habitual study, Joe. Do you know I see a newspaper every day, and two of a Sunday?’

‘I should think you’ll read the marriages, probably, miss, and the murders, and the accidents, and sich like?’

‘I read the leading articles, Joe, and the foreign intelligence, and I look over the market prices; in short, I read just what gentlemen read.’

Joe looked as if he thought this talk was like the chattering of a pie. He replied to it by a disdainful silence.

‘Joe,’ continued Miss Keeldar, ‘I never yet could ascertain properly whether you are a Whig or a Tory; pray which party has the honour of your alliance?’

‘It is rayther difficult to explain where you are sure not to be understood,’ was Joe’s haughty response; ‘but, as to being a Tory, I’d as soon be an old woman, or a young one, which is a more flimsier article still. It is the Tories that carries on the war and ruins trade, and, if I be of any party—though political parties is all nonsense—I’m of that which is most favourable to peace, and by consequence, to the mercantile interests of this here land.’

‘So am I, Joe,’ replied Shirley, who had rather a pleasure in teasing the overlooker, by persisting in talking on subjects with which he opined she—as a woman—had no right to meddle: ‘partly, at least. I have rather a leaning to the agricultural interest, too; as good reason is, seeing that I don’t desire England to be under the feet of France, and that if a share of my income comes from Hollow’s Mill, a larger share comes from the landed estate around it. It would not do to take any measures injurious to the farmers, Joe, I think?’