bee-keeping (for hear you must, or you'm done, with bees), but the band
dunna care! There! Now they've got a hencore--that's to say, do it
agen; and every time they get one of them it goes to their yeads, and
they play louder.'

'Ah, but you play better,' said Hazel comfortingly; for Abel's voice
had trembled, and Hazel must comfort grief wherever she found it, for
grief implied weakness.

'I know I do,' he assented; 'but what can I do agen ten strong men?'

At the mountain, as in the world of art and letters, it seemed that the
artist must elbow and push, and that if he did not often stop his
honeyed utterances to shout his wares he would not be heard at all.

'Dunna they look funny!' said Hazel with a giggle. 'All sleepy and
quiet, like smoked bees. Is that the Minister? Him by the old sleepy
lady--she's had more smoke than most!'

'Where?'

'There. He's got a black coat on and a kind face, sad-like.'

'Maybe if you took an axed him, he'd marry you--when the moon falls
down the chapel chimney and rabbits chase the bobtailed sheep-dog!'

'I'm not for marrying anybody. Let's go in,' said Hazel.

She took off her hat and coat, to enter more splendidly. On her head,
resting softly among the coils of ruddy hair, she put a wreath of