"Before coming to any bargain-that-that will be

necessary."

"And bargains are best made before witnesses?"

"That's as you please," said Arkdale.

"Then you'd better, perhaps, come home with me."

"You know best about that, and what will be thought friends."

about it amongst your

"Nay, I have no friends; only honest folk in the house, who would not see me unfairly dealt by. Ferryman!"

"Ferryman!" shouted Arkdale, in a voice that woke a distant echo.

The dog looked round and barked at them for interrupting his master's meal; the old ferryman leisurely wiped his clasp knife, and wrapped his bread up; then got into the boat, pushed off, and, with his heavy pole, soon brought it to the other side of the river.

"Now, sir," cried a surly, cracked voice, “my time's my life; look sharp, and help your sweetheart in."

Arkdale smiled, and held out his hand; Joan smiled, and took it daintily, showing a little brief colour in her cheek.

When she had sat down, Arkdale stepped in, and took a

seat facing her.

"Look here, mistress," said the ferryman; "I'll set you down close at your place for a penny more, as I'm going home."

"Then do," answered Joan; so the boat was turned, and the old man pushed against the current.

Joan was silent, and appeared thoughtful. In a little while she said to Arkdale, taking off her hat,

""Tis great folly if I have the fuss and ado of taking you into the house, and then you are not satisfied."

"I know what there is in those plaits. I fancy I could guess the weight," said Arkdale, with a smile.

and then you cannot say

"At least you shall see now; you were deceived," said Joan, coolly, after a glance round the banks.

She took out the pins, and undid the plaits in the space of a minute, combed her hair out loosely with her fingers, shook it forwards, and looked gravely at Arkdale for an opinion.

Her eyes dropped again quickly, for the look she met

was not merely the look of a man who perceived he had

made a good bargain.

If a mermaid had risen from the water, put Joan Merryweather from her place, and sat and smiled before him, the young man could scarcely have gazed on her with more

amazement.

Joan's hair, silky, yellow, rippling, and long enough to touch with its pale golden waves the river's silver ones, was indeed her glory. The letting of it down about her was like the sudden shining of the sun upon a landscape, the glimmer of the moon on grey waters.

The modest consciousness, of its beauty gave a new aspect to her face. Its self-reliant, stern, business-like air vanished; its sternness became softness, the eyes glowed with deeper colour, the dull cheeks brightened to faint rose tints, the lips relaxed and became rounder, the whole face was seized with the sweet weakness and confusion of beauty, which made it nearly as charming as beauty itself.

It was the fairest of September evenings; the dew fell, and all nature, weary and athirst, steeped her lips in it,

and drank with a silent and a deep joy, which was shown in every trembling leaf, and reed, and blade of grass.

Arkdale gazed at her in the greatest wonder, but Joan knew he was not looking only at her hair.

Sometimes the hubbub of the fair came in a faint sound over the fields, like the noise of the old world, which it seemed to Arkdale they had left behind.

The old ferryman made grimaces at his dog, to see the young fellow so absorbed. In truth, Arkdale at times forgot by what means he was being carried along. It often seemed to him to be the pale gleam of Joan's exquisite hair, and the sweet smell of the sprig of rosemary in her bosom, that, like a charm, drew him on and on, whither, he scarce remembered, or cared to know.

To break the spell, Joan lifted her hand as if to put the hair back again, and said,—

"Well, will it be your money's worth?"

Arkdale started.

"One minute," he said, catching at her wrist, and draw

ing it gently down, "I am making a reckoning."

The old ferryman looked at his dog and grinned.

Joan saw not how she could object, so submitted; and as Arkdale forgot to let go the hand, there was a look on Joan's part intended to be severe, but its severity got lost on the way, and so it was only a glance of inquiry or reminder, to which Arkdale's handsome eyes replied with most profound apologies.

Joan locked her fingers lightly over her knees, and looked down sideways into the water.

But for those hands, which bore the marks of honest labour, Arkdale could have half fancied himself being spirited away by this fair-haired maiden, beyond the borders of this every-day bargaining world.

On went the little boat, the sunset colours glowing above and beneath it, a swarm of merry gnats pursuing it, and an enlarged picture of itself and its silent crew floating with it on the side where Joan's eyes fell.

Arkdale was not a superstitious man, but there was something alike weird and bewitching in thus gliding, with the gentlest rocking motion, along the river whose every turn was fresh to him, and Joan in the midst, with her