ragged and old, and the feet, which were stretched forth from under its folds, were brown and bare as the hands which so deftly wielded the comb. 

 John's eyes rested with intense disapproval on these shapely feet, and travelled slowly backwards over the ragged petticoat and the pink cotton jacket—which, instead of being neatly buttoned over at the neck, fell loosely open, disclosing the girl's throat, firm and round as a pillar—and so on till they reached her face; then suddenly drooped before the disconcerting gaze of another pair of eyes, very large and bright. 

 "I hope ye'll know me again," said the girl 

 "I hope ye'll know me again," said the girl. 

 John looked up with a grin. "It'll be hard work if you keep your face covered up with all that hair," he said. 

 She gathered together the heavy yellow masses with both hands, twisted them up with astonishing speed and deftness, and let her arms fall upon her lap. 

 "Theer!" she said. 

 It was not a pretty face John at first decided; tanned as it was to the colour of ripe corn, and the eyes, such a light blue and with such blue whites, looking so strange in this setting. The cheeks, moreover, were not rosy like those of his cousin Jinny, nor rounded in their contours—the chin was too pointed; yet even as John looked a sudden dimple flashed there, and a smile, swift and mischievous, lit up the whole face. Then he did not feel quite so sure. 

 "What in the name of fortune are you doing here?" he asked abruptly, almost roughly, for the smile nettled him. "Can't you find some better place than this to do your dressing in?" 

 "If I didn't comb my hair i' th' sandhills I wouldn't comb it at all," she returned. "It's the on'y place I have to do onythin' in. Mony a time when th' owd lad is fuddled, me an' my Aunt Nancy sleep on 'em." 

 "Sleep out o' doors!" ejaculated John, much scandalised. 

 "Aye, oftener than not, I can tell you. Tisn't so very coomfortable when theer's snow about—though we mak' up a bit o' fire an' that; but it's reet enough this time o' year. Aye, I like to lay awake lookin' up at the stars, an' listenin' to the wayter yon. The rabbits coom dancin' round us, an' th' birds fly ower we'r 'eads when 

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