Kester in his sphere--among his circle of acquaintance, narrow though it was--had heard with much pride of Sylvia's bearing away the bell at church and at market, wherever girls of her age were congregated.

He was a north countryman, so he gave out no further sign of his feelings than his mistress and Sylvia's mother had done on a like occasion.
'T' lass is weel enough,' said he; but he grinned to himself, and looked about, and listened to the hearsay of every lad, wondering who was handsome, and brave, and good enough to be Sylvia's mate.
Now, of late, it had seemed to the canny farm-servant pretty clear that Philip Hepburn was 'after her'; and to Philip, Kester had an instinctive objection, a kind of natural antipathy such as has existed in all ages between the dwellers in a town and those in the country, between agriculture and trade.

So, while Kinraid and Sylvia kept up their half-tender, half-jesting conversation, Kester was making up his slow persistent mind as to the desirability of the young man then present as a husband for his darling, as much from his being other than Philip in every respect, as from the individual good qualities he possessed.

Kester's first opportunity of favouring Kinraid's suit consisted in being as long as possible over his milking; so never were cows that required such 'stripping,' or were expected to yield such 'afterings', as Black Nell and Daisy that night.

But all things must come to an end; and at length Kester got up from his three-legged stool, on seeing what the others did not--that the dip-candle in the lantern was coming to an end--and that in two or three minutes more the shippen would be in darkness, and so his pails of milk be endangered.