or, The Silver Skates 329

“ Tt wasn’t in reason,” as she afterwards said to Hans, “ to
wait any longer, when a word from the father would settle all.
No woman living but would want to
know how he came by that watch.”
Raff Brinker turned the bright, pol-
ished thing over and over in his
hand ; then he examined the bit of
smoothly ironed black ribbon fastened
to it: he seemed hardly to recognize
it. At last he said, “ Ah, I remem-
ber this! Why, you’ve been rub-
bing it, vroww, till it shines like a
new guilder.”

“ Ay,” said Dame Brinker, nod- THE WATCH.

ding her head complacently.

 

Raff looked at it again. “ Poor boy!” he murmured, then
fell into a brown study.

This was too much for the dame. ‘Poor boy!” she
echoed somewhat tartly. ‘ What do you think I’m standing
here for, Raff Brinker, and my spinning waiting, if not to
hear more than that?”

“T told ye all long since,” said Raff, positively, as he looked
up in surprise.

“Indeed, and you never did!” retorted the vrouw.

“ Well, if not, since it’s no affair of ours, we'll say no more
about it,’ said Raff, shaking his head sadly. “ Like enough,
while I’ve been dead on the earth, all this time, the poor
boy ’s died, and been in heaven. He looked near enough to
it, poor lad!”

“ Raff Brinker! If you’re going to treat me this way, and
1 nursing you and bearing with you since I was twenty-two