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 handmaid: my darling brought her to the window, and presented her to me, almost laughing through her grief.

"Oh, I am so glad, John; Gwenny, I am so glad you came. I have wanted long to introduce you to my 'young man,' as you call him. It is rather dark, but you can see him. I wish you to know him again, Gwenny."

"Whoy!" cried Gwenny, with great amazement, standing on tiptoe to look out, and staring as if she were weighing me: "her be bigger nor any Doone! Heared as her have bate our Carnish champion awrastling. 'Twadn't fair play noltow: no, no; don't tell me, 'twadn't fair play nohow."

"True enough, Gwenny," I answered her; for the play had been very unfair indeed on the side of the Bodmin champion: "it was not a fair bout, little maid; I am free to acknowledge that." By that answer, or rather by the construction she put upon it, the heart of the Cornish girl was won, more than by gold and silver.

"I shall knoo thec again, young man; no fear of that;" she answered, nodding with an air of patronage. "Now, missis, gae on coortin', and I wall gae outside and watch for 'ee." Though expressed not over delicately, this proposal arose, no doubt, from Gwenny's sense of delicacy; and I was very thankful to her for taking her departure.

"She is the best little thing in the world," said Lorna, softly laughing; "and the queerest, and the truest. Nothing will bribe her against me. If she seems to VOL. II.