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THE feast of St. Wilfred was always kept as a high day and holiday among the richest and poorest of the people of Walton. The Minster bells rang it in cheerily, before the drowsy town was half astir, and everybody rose up with festive intentions. These homely merry-makings are gone out of fashion now-adays; we have learnt to enjoy ourselves in a severer and discreeter manner; but our grandfathers and grandmothers, in the middle class especially, made of them great events;made of them times for reunion of scattered kinsfolk, for the healing of quarrels, and bringing together again of divided friends. The feast fell early in August, when the trees about the market-cross were full of a dusky green shadow, when the last of the hay-harvest was ingathered, and the first of the reaping was not begun; so that the country people were free to come in crowds to partake of the moderate dissipations of the fair times.

The bow-window of old-maid Kibblewhite's best parlour overlooked on this occasion the busiest scene of all the year. The swing-boats, the whirligigs, the shows, with their discordant bands of music, and delusive exterior delineations of giants, dwarfs, and two-headed beasts, were ranged along the upper end of the market-place, and skirting the pavement stood the stalls of children's toys, of sweeties for the treating of sweethearts, with fluttering warblers, dream-books, and fortune-telling books, in gorgeous covers, hanging from the

laths that supported their awnings. Mistress Nannie Brigget and her commères abandoned for the nonce their baskets of plump poultry and fresh eggs, and sat, like venerable Pomonas, amidst teeming stores of fruit, ripe and luscious, rosy and purple and golden, dealing out lavish ha'porths to the youngsters that patronized them. Market-day or fair-day, Nannie Brigget never lacked excess of customers; but the favourite who always had the pick of her treasures at St. Wilfred's was Dorothea Sancton.

From early morning, Dorothea kept a casual watch upon the stands round the Cross until she saw her ancient friend established among her blushing heaps of fruit; then away she went with her basket to cull of the choicest to furnish forth the hospitable table of old-maid Kibblewhite, who entertained that day relatives, friends, and select customers amongst the farmer's wives, according to her immemorial practice. Any time for six or eight years back Dorothea had supported the burden and responsibility of this important gathering, and very well she had supported it too; for as she gained in years, she gained also in gravity and solidity of person and character.

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Nannie Brigget used always to greet her on St. Wilfred's privileged morning with the same pertinent questions-"Well, Mistress Dorothy, who ha' yo getten to gi' ye yer fairings to year?" But Dorothea never needed to blush; for, while her young companions were wooed, an' married an' a'," she still remained uncourted in her old aunt's ingle nook; her stiff tiers of curls losing annually a little of their natural gloss, and her cheeks becoming less rosily variable each successive season. Her brother George was quite the young man now, with a sanguine young man's amiable appreciation of the charms of blue eyes, coral lips, and plump contours, in the person of little Nellie Constant, the bachelor clerk's housekeeping niece; and her friend Robert Hawthorne had long since overtopped her by a very handsome head and shoulders. She used sometimes to say, with a laugh that was not all mirth, that she thought she was growing down in the world. But, never mind, Dorothea, keep a good heart! There will come a St. Wilfred's some day, if not this year, nor the next, nor the next after that, when your fit work will be given you to do and your pre-ordained vocation will be discovered; when you will bless God and be thankful; though if they were revealed to you now, you might be tempted to rebel, and to protest that they were a long way from realizing any of your visions of happiness.

But if Dorothea had not her one special donor of fairings, no particular Johnny who "promised to buy her a bunch of blue ribbons to tie up her bonny brown hair," she had many old friends who never forgot her. Mr. Joshua Hawthorne and Mr. Reuben Otley always made her a present in the name of her father, their former servant, which kept the thrifty and prudent damsel not only in blue ribbons, but in more substantial attire, from one St. Wilfred's to another; and Robert Hawthorne, from the first of their acquaintance had always esteemed himself privileged to come with an offering in his hand on this particular festival. At first, it was only a sixpenny red-velvet pincushion, heart-shaped and stuffed with bran, until it was as hard as a stone; but as he grew older and possessed ampler pocket-money, he had gradually developed a generous taste in shell-work boxes, Russia leather housewives, and even little articles of personal adornment, by which Dorothea of late years had come to set great store, treasuring them in a place by themselves and letting them grow as old-fashioned as if they had come out of the ark, before she could prevail upon herself to put them to their natural use. Dorothea Sancton was not a sentimental character, but she sometimes had rather soft and sentimental feelings, as she contemplated Robert Hawthorne's boyish gifts -fairings as he called them-sentimental feelings which would have astonished Robert had he been vain enough to suspect them, which he was not. The lad always had a modest and humble appreciation of himself, but as the manly down on his cheek darkened, he, too, had his secret worship of one bright particular star, and all the other stars in the firmament shone for him in vain; even the domestic lustre, Dorothea, was dull and earthly in comparison with Lilian. At this date, when Robert Hawthorne was twenty, she was scarcely gay fifteen; as innocent and thoughtless, and wilful and petulant, as was the little Lilian he and George Sancton had coaxed out of her sorrow six years ago, by chairing her round Miss Kibblewhite's parlour, sitting on their crossed arms.

II.

Miss Kibblewhite's dinner always took place at the primitive hour of noon, and before two o'clock all the guests were again dispersed to visit shops or stalls as their taste inclined,

and Dorothea was free to enjoy what had long been to her the pleasantest part of the day. The doings of fairs please young folks of all conditions, I believe, and Lady Leigh's protégés were no exceptions to the general rule. As none of the stir penetrated to the seclusion on the Minster hill, she, therefore, permitted them to accept Miss Kibblewhite's annual invitation to sit in her bow-window and look out upon the noisy Market-place while the fun was at its height during an hour or two of the afternoon. Under the escort of Mistress Hilton and Sempronius, now become a pompous serious footman, Lilian and Lola arrived as usual, and having handed them over to the safe custody of Dorothea, serving-man and serving-maid went off to spend their own holiday in inspecting the interior of the shows.

Dorothea, as a matter of course, always kept a reserve of Nanny Brigget's finest fruit for her pet Lilian and little Lola, and they enjoyed it as thoroughly as any of the ha'pennyspending urchins in the turmoil below. Lilian appreciated a holiday with Dorothea, who was mother and elder sister and friend all in one to her, and Lola's swarthy cheeks and great black eyes glowed with the exhilarating sense of a rare freedom. It was tacitly understood by Lady Leigh, that while her children were in Miss Kibblewhite's best parlour, none of the old maids more homely friends should be admitted there, and great was Dorothea's dismay when Robert Hawthornefull three hours earlier than it was his custom to pay his visits -walked upstairs and in amongst them with a pretty French basket, containing a measure of nuts, in his hand, and told her he had brought her some fairings.

It was a very hot sunshiny afternoon, and Lilian had flung off hat and pelerin, and was seated upon a low footstool with her arm on the window-sill, and her round dimpled chin resting upon it, while her pretty soft eyes brightened over the humours of the fair. She blushed a little, but she certainly laughed, and Robert, though at first disconcerted by Dorothea's look of surprise, drew up a chair into the bow, and, pouring the nuts into her lap, invited the girls to crack and eat. Now Lilian liked nuts-but she was rather shy or proud, or, perhaps she was only reluctant to crack Robert's nuts, for she said she did not care for them much. Not so Lola. Dropping on her knees in front of Dorothea, she plunged her hand amongst them, and set her white little teeth to work with all the skill and vivacity of a squirrel-utterly repudiating her

turn at the crackers, a solitary pair, which furnished Miss Kibblewhite's establishment.

Robert did not eat any himself, but he was very dexterous in discovering the largest kernels and extracting them whole, an operation which Lilian furtively observed, observing also the length and beauty of his hands, which were true Nugent hands, and wondering how, as a tradesman, he could keep them so white and perfect in shape; for she had some very queer mistaken notions of his occupations: she, perhaps, thought that in private life he became as soiled and grim as old Tom Aldin; or that he slaved bodily at making casks and filling them, and that he washed his face at the pump in the yard and changed his coat and took off a great apron before he appeared in the street-which was not quite the fact. When Robert had made a little heap of these best kernels, he divided them and offered one share to Dorothea and the other to Lilian, and this time Lilian made a rosytinted cup of her two hands and permitted him to pour them in, afterwards munching them up with great apparent relish.

"You do like them," said Robert, with a fine blush and a little air of pleased excitement, and Lilian nodded and said, "Yes."

"All gone!" cried Lola, tossing up a handful of the empty shells, "all gone!" and Robert sallied forth to buy another

measure.

"I am afraid Lady Leigh would be displeased if she knew of Robert Hawthorne being here," suggested Dorothea, doubtfully.

"Oh, never mind! it's fun!" said Lola. "I like him; he is Cyrus's brother."

Lilian said nothing, but only looked out of the window to where Robert was standing at a stall receiving the nuts. He came back up-stairs ever so many steps at a time; but Miss Kibblewhite, who had been shut up with a friend in the back parlour before, heard him and followed. She gave Dorothea a glance of reproof, but Dorothea, who in her heart loved a bit of mischief, said, out loud

"It is not my fault, indeed, aunt," and Robert, who suspected what it meant, blushed guiltily, but tried to seem unconscious.

Miss Kibblewhite had too many duties demanding her presence elsewhere to permit her to mount guard over the young

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