the top of the dingle, where I heard the sound distinctly enough,
but it was going from me, and evidently proceeded from something
much larger than the cart of Isopel. I could, moreover, hear the
stamping of a horse's hoof at a lumbering trot. Those only whose
hopes have been wrought up to a high pitch, and then suddenly cast
down, can imagine what I felt at that moment; and yet when I
returned to my lonely tent, and lay down on my hard pallet, the
voice of conscience told me that the misery I was then undergoing I
had fully merited, for the unkind manner in which I had intended to
receive her, when for a brief moment I supposed that she had
returned.

It was on the morning after this affair, and the fourth, if I
forget not, from the time of Isopel's departure, that, as I was
seated on my stone at the bottom of the dingle, getting my
breakfast, I heard an unknown voice from the path above--apparently
that of a person descending--exclaim, "Here's a strange place to
bring a letter to;" and presently an old woman, with a belt round
her middle, to which was attached a leathern bag, made her
appearance, and stood before me.

"Well, if I ever!" said she, as she looked about her. "My good
gentlewoman," said I, "pray what may you please to want?"
"Gentlewoman!" said the old dame, "please to want--well, I call
that speaking civilly, at any rate. It is true, civil words cost
nothing; nevertheless, we do not always get them. What I please to
want is to deliver a letter to a young man in this place; perhaps
you be he?" "What's the name on the letter?" said I, getting up,
and going to her. "There's no name upon it," said she, taking a
letter out of her scrip, and looking at it. "It is directed to the