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THE MILLER OF EAMONT BRIDGE:

A WESTMORELAND TALE OF THE LAST CENTURY.
BY MRS. HIBBERT WARE,

Authoress of "Dr. Harcourt's Assistant," "The Hunlock Title Deeds,"
The Water Tower," &c.

CHAPTER XXII.

"DINNA SAY I HEV NAE WARNED YE."

We left Grandy Gandy, in our last chapter, standing at the door of the Cliftons' house at Shap, at nine o'clock. At the same hour Mrs. Gurnett was seated in the chamber called the house-place, with Bump Willis.

The snow was still falling at Eamont Bridge, and the dark foliage of the firs in the desolate-looking garden by the river side, was white with its flakes. The little wicket-door leading from this cheerless plot of ground had been left open by some one, and it flapped to and fro with every gust of wind.

The house itself, under its screen of ivy, formed a dark patch amidst the waste of snow spreading away all around, for there were few lights to be seen in the casements. Mrs. Gurnett had as yet made no change in her style of living; but rumour whispered that as soon as the wealthy widow should become possessed of the old mansion of the Cheneys, so soon would there be a vast alteration in her mode of life, and that where two domestics were kept now, half-a-dozen would not satisfy her then.

Ann

Now, on this particular evening, Mrs. Gurnett had but one handmaid to obey her behests, and that one was old Judith. Settle had not been well, and had wished for a holiday; but certainly she was taken somewhat by surprise, and could scarce understand what could have prompted such an unusual fit of good nature in her mistress, as to induce the latter to dispense with her service for three whole days. However, this had been the case, and Ann Settle had gone, early in the morning, to Shap.

A broad stream of light fell from the casement window of the room in which Mrs. Gurnett was seated, on to the pile of snow which had drifted against the wall of the house. Without, all was July.-VOL. XIV., no. LXXIX.

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cold and desolate within, there was light, and warmth, and comfort. Huge logs were piled up in the yawning stove, and Willis, seated in a high-backed cone chair, extended his legs, cased in welldarned b'ue worsted hose and rusty black knee-breeches, in front of the fire, and basked in the ruddy flames and thought how well he would like to sit in that warm corner, not as a guest, but as the master of the house. As he thought, he stole a glance at the widow, who sat sipping out of a rare old china cup, gunpowder tea at 17. a pound, for nothing less than the best would suit that old lady's palate now.

She looked very handsome and very fascinating, and Willis sighed and ogled and tried to make himself agreeable. Sometimes he felt hopeful, and then again fell into the depths of despair.

To own the truth, he found this love-making desperate hard work. Mrs. Gurnett had something of the tigress in her nature: she would paw one moment and claw the next. The talons were sheathed with velvet, but lay in ambush, ready to start out on the slightest occasion.

However, Willis had more moment of blissful hope than he had of despair. Why, he would ask himself, does she invite me here so constantly, and place the best of everything the house contains on the board before me, when she is so close and stingy to everyone else? It must be love, and love only, that makes her

act so.

Never was a man more egregiously deceived. Cunning as he thought himself, Mistress Gurnett was more than a match for him; and later on, when he discovered his error, he smarted more under the sense of having been outwitted in trickery, than at the loss of the widow and her fortune.

Mercenary to the last degree, Mrs. Gurnett was always plotting and planning, how she could save her pocket, and enrich herself at other people's expense. There was some little amount of law business to be done after the miller's death, and as Willis had been so much employed by her late husband, the widow resolved to employ him also; but there was now to be this difference, the miller had paid for all the legal work done for him - his widow had no intention of paying at all. So she invited Willis to her house as a friend, and gave him to understand that the reward for his professional services, was to be her friendship; he accepted with rapture the offer, and became her bounden slave, whilst she threw out the line, and placed the golden bait before his eyes,-alas! never to be his.

Eager to please her in every way, Willis, seeing her dislike and hatred to poor Mary, and her very palpable wish to get rid of her by placing her in a lunatic asylum, seconded the project by every

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