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Cytherea caught at the chance afforded her of not betraying herself

'Yes, I know her,' she said

'Well,' said Miss Hinton, 'I ahtly of any friend of yours has hurt your feelings, but--' 'O, never mind,' Cytherea returned; 'it doesn't matter, Miss Hinton

I think I must leave you now I have to call at other places Yes --I o' Miss Hinton, in a perplexed state of mind, showed her visitor politely downstairs to the door Here Cytherea bade her a hurried adieu, and flitted down the garden into the lane

She persevered in her duties with a ard pleasure in giving herself rove's na, the Three Tranters Inn

3 FOUR TO FIVE PM

The cottages along Carriford village street were not so close but that on one side or other of the road was always a hedge of hawthorn or privet, over or through which could be seen gardens or orchards rich with produce It was about the middle of the early apple-harvest, and the laden trees were shaken at intervals by the gatherers; the soft pattering of the falling crop upon the grassy ground being diversified by the loud rattle of vagrant ones upon a rail, hencoop, basket, or lean-to roof, or upon the rounded and stooping backs of the collectors-- such a sly assumed it to be but fun in apples

The Three Tranters Inn, a , constructed almost entirely of timber, plaster, and thatch, stood close to the line of the roadside, almost opposite the churchyard, and was connected with a row of cottages on the left by thatched outbuildings It was an uncoenuine roadside inn of bygone tihways in this part of England, had in its time been the scene of as enial experience of stage-coach travelling as any halting-place in the country The railway had absorbed the whole streae and along by the ancient door of the inn, reducing the empty-handed landlord, who used only to farm a few fields at the back of the house, to the necessity of eking out his attenuated incoricultural business if he would still eneral stillness pervading the spot, the long line of outbuildings adjoining the house was thewitness to the passed-away fortunes of the Three Tranters Inn It was the bulk of the original stabling, and where once the hoofs of two-score horses had daily rattled over the stony yard, to and frorehilst the line of roofs--once so straight--over the decayed stalls, had sunk into vast hollows till they seee