While the sociable and unaspiring Mrs. Garland continued thus to pass the evening in two places, her body in her own house and her mind in the miller’s, somebody knocked at the door, and directly after the elder Loveday himself was admitted to the room. He was dressed in a suit between grand and gay, which he used for such occasions as the present, and his blue coat, yellow and red waistcoat with the three lower buttons unfastened, steel-buckled shoes and speckled stockings, became him very well in Mrs. Martha Garland’s eyes.

‘Your servant, ma’am,’ said the miller, adopting as a matter of propriety the raised standard of politeness required by his higher costume. ‘Now, begging your pardon, I can’t hae this. ’Tis unnatural that you two ladies should be biding here and we under the same roof making merry without ye. Your husband, poor man—lovely picters that a’ would make to be sure—would have been in with us long ago if he had been in your place. I can take no nay from ye, upon my honour. You and maidy Anne must come in, if it be only for half-an-hour. John and his friends have got passes till twelve o’clock to-night, and, saving a few of our own village folk, the lowest visitor present is a very genteel German corporal. If you should hae any misgivings on the score of respectability, ma’am, we’ll pack off the underbred ones into the back kitchen.’

Widow Garland and Anne looked yes at each other after this appeal.

‘We’ll follow you in a few minutes,’ said the elder, smiling; and she rose with Anne to go upstairs.

‘No, I’ll wait for ye,’ said the miller doggedly; ‘or perhaps you’ll alter your mind again.’

While the mother and daughter were upstairs dressing, and saying laughingly to each other, ‘Well, we must go now,’ as if they hadn’t wished to go all the evening, other steps were heard in the passage; and the miller cried from below, ‘Your pardon, Mrs. Garland; but my son John has come to help fetch ye. Shall I ask him in till ye be ready?’

‘Certainly; I shall be down in a minute,’ screamed Anne’s mother in a slanting voice towards the staircase.

When she descended, the outline of the trumpet-major appeared half-way down the passage. ‘This is John,’ said the miller simply. ‘John, you can mind Mrs. Martha Garland very well?’

‘Very well, indeed,’ said the dragoon, coming in a little further. ‘I should have called to see her last time, but I was only home a week. How is your 

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