all the lovely things that haunted it were not sorrowful for me
only, but sorrowful for mother and father as well. Therefore did I
cry again, and often too.

The farm-house family conceived me to be of a morose temper, and
were very short with me; though they never stinted me in such
broken fare as was to be got out of regular hours. One night when
I lifted the kitchen latch at my usual time, Sylvia (that was her
pretty name) had but just gone out of the room. Seeing her
ascending the opposite stairs, I stood still at the door. She had
heard the clink of the latch, and looked round.

'George,' she called to me in a pleased voice, 'to-morrow is my
birthday; and we are to have a fiddler, and there's a party of boys
and girls coming in a cart, and we shall dance. I invite you. Be
sociable for once, George.'

'I am very sorry, miss,' I answered; 'but I - but, no; I can't
come.'

'You are a disagreeable, ill-humoured lad,' she returned
disdainfully; 'and I ought not to have asked you. I shall never
speak to you again.'

As I stood with my eyes fixed on the fire, after she was gone, I
felt that the farmer bent his brows upon me.

'Eh, lad!' said he; 'Sylvy's right. You're as moody and broody a
lad as never I set eyes on yet.'