young ladies!"



CHAPTER V.


A broad-shouldered man looked down on them from the summit of the
knoll, which he had climbed on its westward side; a tradesman to all
appearance, clad in a dusty, ill-fitting suit. So far as they could
judge--for he stood with the waning light at his back--he was not
ill-featured; but, by his manner of mopping his brow, he was most
ungracefully hot, and Molly declared ever afterwards that his thick
worsted stockings, seen against the ball of the sun, gave his calves
a hideous hairiness. She used to add that he was more than half
drunk. His manner of accosting them--half uneasy, half familiar--
froze the Wesley sisters.

"Good evening, young ladies! And nice and cool you look, I will say.
Can any of you tell me if Parson Wesley's at home?"

"He is not," Emilia answered. "He has gone towards Bawtry."

"Well now, that's what the maid told me at the parsonage: but I
thought, maybe, 'twas a trick--a sort of slip-out-by-the-back and
not-at-home to a creditor. I've heard of parsons playing that game,
and no harm to their conscience, because no lie told."

"Sir!" Emilia rose and faced him.