"Is this the way to the manse of Dullarg?" asked the young man,
standing up with his hat in his hand, the brim just beneath his
chin. He was a handsome young man when he stood up straight.

Jess looked at him attentively. They did not speak in that way in
her country, nor did they take their hats in their hands when they
had occasion to speak to young women.

"I am myself going past the Dullarg," she said, and paused with a
hiatus like an invitation.

Ralph Peden was a simple young man, but he rose and shouldered his
knapsack without a word. The slim, dark-haired girl with the
bright, quick eyes like a bird, put out her hand to take a share
of the burden of Ralph's bag.

"Thank you, but I am quite able to manage it myself," he said, "I
could not think of letting you put your hand to it."

"I am not a fine lady," said the girl, with a little impatient
movement of her brows, as if she had stamped her foot. "I am
nothing but a cottar's lassie."

"But then, how comes it that you speak as you do?" asked Ralph.

"I have been long in England--as a lady's maid," she answered with
a strange, disquieting look at him. She had taken one side of the
bag of books in spite of his protest, and now walked by Ralph's
side through the evening coolness.