orator proves without a doubt, and we'll show it one of these days.
A rare lady I'll make of you yet, Charlotte Arnold.'

'O hush, Tom, I can never be a lady--and I can't stand dawdling here-
-nor you neither. 'Tisn't right to want to be out of our station,
though I do wish I lived in an old castle, where the maidens worked
tapestry, and heard minstrels, never had no stairs to scour. Come,
give me my mats, and thank you kindly!'

'I'll take 'em in,' said Tom, shouldering them. ''Tis breakfast-
hour, so I thought I'd just run up and ax you when my young Lord goes
up to Oxford.

'He is gone,' said Charlotte; 'he was here yesterday to take leave of
missus. Mr. James goes later--'

'Gone!' cried Tom. 'If he didn't say he'd come and see me at Mr.
Smith's!'

'Did you want to speak to him?'

'I wanted to see him particular. There's a thing lays heavy on my
mind. You see that place down in Ferny dell--there's a steep bank
down to the water. Well, my young Lord was very keen about building
a kind of steps there in the summer, and he and I settled the stones,
and I was to cement 'em. By comes Mr. Frost, and finds faults, what
I thought he'd no call to; so I flings down my trowel, and wouldn't
go on for he! I was so mortal angry, I would not go back to the
work; and I believe my Lord forgot it--and then he went back to
college; and Frampton and Gervas, they put on me, and you know how