Keeldar's frank, hospitable manners were perfectly charming to him. Caroline he had known from her childhood: unconsciously, she was his ideal of a lady. Her gentle mien, step, gestures, her grace of person and attire, moved some artist-fibres about his peasant heart: he had a pleasure in looking at her, as he had in examining rare flowers, or in seeing pleasant landscapes. Both the ladies liked William: it was their delight to lend him books, to give him plants; and they preferred his conversation far before that of many coarse, hard, pretentious people, immeasurably higher in station.
"Who was speaking, William, when you came out?" asked Shirley.
"A gentleman ye set a deal of store on, Miss Shirley—Mr. Donne."
"You look knowing, William. How did you find out my regard for Mr. Donne?"
"Ay, Miss Shirley, there's a gleg light i' your een sometimes which betrays you. You look raight down scornful sometimes, when Mr. Donne is by."
"Do you like him yourself, William?"
"Me? I'm stalled o' t' Curates, and so is t' wife: they've no manners; they talk to poor folk fair as if they thought they were beneath them. They're allus magnifying their office: it is a pity but their office could magnify them; but it does nought o' t' soart. I fair hate pride."
"But you are proud in your own way yourself," interposed Caroline: "you are what you call house-
