Sylvia, and might openly strive to gain her love. But, alas! the
fulfilment of that wish of his had lagged sadly behind. He was
placed as far as he could, even in his most sanguine moments, have
hoped to be as regarded business, but Sylvia was as far from his
attainment as ever--nay, farther. Still the great obstacle was
removed in Kinraid's impressment. Philip took upon himself to decide
that, with such a man as the specksioneer, absence was equivalent to
faithless forgetfulness. He thought that he had just grounds for
this decision in the account he had heard of Kinraid's behaviour to
Annie Coulson; to the other nameless young girl, her successor in
his fickle heart; in the ribald talk of the sailors in the Newcastle
public-house. It would be well for Sylvia if she could forget as
quickly; and, to promote this oblivion, the name of her lover should
never be brought up, either in praise or blame. And Philip would be
patient and enduring; all the time watching over her, and labouring
to win her reluctant love.

There she was! He saw her as he stood at the top of the little
hill-path leading down to the Robsons' door. She was out of doors,
in the garden, which, at some distance from the house, sloped up the
bank on the opposite side of the gully; much too far off to be
spoken to--not too far off to be gazed at by eyes that caressed her
every movement. How well Philip knew that garden; placed long ago by
some tenant of the farm on a southern slope; walled in with rough
moorland stones; planted with berry-bushes for use, and southernwood
and sweet-briar for sweetness of smell. When the Robsons had first
come to Haytersbank, and Sylvia was scarcely more than a pretty
child, how well he remembered helping her with the arrangement of
this garden; laying out his few spare pence in hen-and-chicken
daisies at one time, in flower-seeds at another; again in a