lord it over everybody aboot here, if he was let. But he's as poor as a church rat—who minds him?"
The language was extraordinary—so was the tone. Laura had been gazing at the speaker in a growing amazement.
"Thank you!" she said impetuously, when Mason stopped. "Thank you!—but, in spite of your story, I don't think you ought to speak like that of the gentleman I am staying with!"
Mason threw himself back in his chair. He was evidently trying to control himself.
"I didn't mean no offence," he said at last, with a return of the sulky voice. "Of course I understand that you're staying with the quality, and not with the likes of us."
Laura's face lit up with laughter. "What an extraordinary silly thing to say! But I don't mind—I'll forgive you—like I did years ago, when you pushed me into the puddle!"
"I pushed you into a puddle? But—I never did owt o' t' sort!" cried Mason, in a slow crescendo of astonishment.
"Oh, yes, you did," she nodded her little head. "I broke an egg, and you bullied me. Of course I thought you were a horrid boy—and I loved Polly, who cleaned my shoes and put me straight. Where's Polly, is she at church?"
"Aye—I dare say," said Mason stupidly, watching his visitor meanwhile with all his eyes. She had just put up a small hand and taken off her cap. Now, mechanically, she began to pat and arrange the little curls upon her forehead, then to take out and replace a hairpin or two, so as to fasten the golden mass behind a little more securely. The white fingers moved with an exquisite sureness and daintiness, the lifted arms showed all the young curves of the girl's form.
Suddenly Laura turned to him again. Her eyes had been staring dreamily into the fire, while her hands had been busy with her hair.
"So you don't remember our visit at all? You don't remember papa?"
He shook his head.
"Ah! well"—she sighed. Mason felt unaccountably guilty.
"I was always terr'ble bad at remembering," he said hastily.
"But you ought to have remembered papa." Then, in quite a different voice, "Is this your sitting-room"—she looked round it—"or—or your kitchen?"
The last words fell rather timidly, lest she might have hurt his feelings.
Mason jumped up.
"Why, yon's the parlour," he said. "I should ha' taken you there fust thing. Will you coom? I'll soon make a fire."
And walking across the kitchen, he threw open a further door ceremoniously. Laura followed, pausing just inside the threshold to look round the little musty sitting-room, with its framed photographs, its woollen mats, its rocking-chairs, and its square of mustard-coloured carpet. Mason watched her furtively all the time, to see how the place struck her.
"Oh, this isn't as nice as the kitchen," she said decidedly. "What's that?" She pointed to a pewter cup standing stately and alone upon the largest possible wool mat in the centre of a table.
Mason threw back his head and chuckled. His great chest seemed to fill out; all his sulky constraint dropped away.
"Of course you don't know anythin aboot these parts," he said to her with condescension. "You don't know as I came near bein champion for the County lasst year—no, I'll reckon you don't. Oh! that cup's nowt—that's nobbut Whinthorpe sports, lasst December. Maybe there'll be a better there, by-and-by."
The young giant grinned, as he took up the cup and pointed with assumed indifference to its inscription.
"What—football?" said Laura, putting up her hand to hide a yawn. "Oh! I don't care about football. But I love cricket. Why—you've got a piano—and a new one!"
Mason's face cleared again—in quite another fashion.
"Do you know the maker?" he said eagerly. "I believe he's thowt a deal of by them as knows. I bought it myself out o' the sheep. The lambs had done fust-rate—an I'd had more'n half the trooble of 'em, ony ways. So I took no heed o' mother. I went down straight to Whinthrupp, an paid the first instalment an browt it up in the cart mesel'. Mr. Castle—do yo knaw 'im?—he's the organist at the parish church—he came with me to choose it."
"And is it you that play it," said Laura wondering, "or your sister?"
He looked at her in silence for a moment—and she at him. His aspect seemed to change under her eyes. The handsome points of the face came out; its coarseness and loutishness receded. And his manner became suddenly quiet and manly—though full of an almost tremulous eagerness.
"You like it?" she asked him.
"What—music? I should think so."
"Oh! I forgot—you're all musical in these northern parts, aren't you?"
He made no answer, but sat down to the piano and opened it. She leant over the back of a chair, watching him, half incredulous, half amused.
"I say—did you ever hear this? I believe it was some Cambridge fellow made it—Castle said so. He played it to me. And I can't get further than just a bit of it."
He raised his great hands and brought them down in a burst of chords that shook the little room and the raftered ceiling. Laura stared. He played on—played like a musician, though with occasional stumbling—played with a mingled energy and delicacy, an understanding and abandonment that amazed her—then grew crimson with the effort to remember—wavered—and stopped.
"Goodness!"—cried Laura. "Why, that's Stanford's music to the Eumenides! How on earth did you hear that? Go away. I can play it."
She pushed him away and sat down. He hung over her, his face smiling and transformed, while her little hands struggled with the chords, found the after melody, pursued it—with pauses now and then, in which he would strike in, prompting her, putting his hand down with hers—and finally, after modulations which she made her way through, with laughter and head-shakings, she fell into a weird dance, to which he beat time with hands and limbs, urging her with a rain of comments.
"Oh! my goody—isn't that rousing? Play that again—just that change—just once! Oh! Lord—isn't that good, that chord—and that bit afterwards, what a bass!—I say, isn't it a bass? Don't you like it—don't you like it awfully?"
Suddenly she wheeled round from the piano, and sat fronting him, her hands on her knees. He fell back into a chair.
"I say"—he said slowly—"you are a grand 'un! If I'd only known you could play like that!"
Her laugh died away. To his amazement she began to frown.
"I haven't played—ten notes—since papa died. He liked it so."
She, turned her back to him, and began to look at the torn music at the top of the piano.
"But you will play—you'll play to me again"—he said beseechingly.—"Why, it would be a sin if you didn't play! Wouldn't I play if I could play like you! I never had more than a lesson, now and again, from old Castle. I used to steal mother's eggs to pay him—I can play any thing I hear—and I've made a song—old Castle's writing it down—he says he'll teach me to
