My Lady. 25

 

for dirtying and tearing your things. How ever
have you gone and torn your jacket-back again?
Look at that, now!”

I knew that it was torn, when it was, so to Say,
not a jacket, but a butcher, and had got jagged
on the bush; but it was of no use telling this to
Nance, so I looked in silence, and then crept away
to my usual retreat beside Monna, and employed
myself in planning what I would say and how I
would behave when I met my lady again.

I went to the same spot the next day, and hung
about there watching for my lady, with the speech
that I would say to her ready on my lips ; but she
did not come. Fora week or more after this the
weather was dull and rainy, and the days went by
without my catching even a distant sight ofher. My
certain conviction that she would return faded,
until I began to fear that I never should see her
again ; but still, whenever Nance asked me, with
her short laugh, “Seen your lady, Reuben ?”
I answered, “ Not yet,” and laid the fault to the
weather.

One day there came on such a pelting shower
that Monna and I were fain to take shelter in an
old shed under a quarry, which had been put to-
gether by the quarrymen to keep their tools in when
they were at work there. It was empty and open