see it. Instead of the gray wool and shining needles, a stalwart figure stood before her, the figure of Buckstone Bradford. He had been her neighbour for all the years of their life; he was four years her senior, and they had been playmates in childhood. A breezy, rosy-cheeked boy he had been, and her sworn ally. The children were apt to divide into two parties: Bethesda and Buckstone on one side, Siloama and Heshbon on the other. Thus arrayed, they were wont to do battle around the yawning gulf of the Tumplety Hole, shouting their respective war-cries, which alluded, in an unfriendly spirit, to the qualities of the enemy. [Pg 44] [Pg 44] Siloama and Heshbon would pipe shrilly; to which Bethesda and Buckstone would reply, in deeper tones, A general combat would ensue, in the course of which both parties were apt to fall down the trap-door into the basement room below, and be rescued by Mother Pool, and summarily dealt with by her slipper. Then came the days of youth, when Buckstone courted her, and might have won her if he had gone to work in the right way. But he was headstrong, and she was obstinate; and he didn't get on with Siloama, and he was hard on Heshbon, and so it had all blown over; he had married another wife, and lost her while Nan was a baby. Miss Bethesda had forgotten all about Nan by this time: before her stood the man of her choice, with his feet apart and his chin stuck out, much as her own sometimes was; his brows were knit, his eyes gleamed with sombre fire. "Bethesda," he said, and the words seemed to force the way through his strong white teeth, "Bethesda, I'm going to marry you, anyway, and I'd like to see you get out of it! Mind that!" Ah, well, that was all men knew! She had got out[Pg 45] of it,—was it a sigh that came at the thought, or a sniff of triumph, or a combination of the two? And Buckstone had married a pindlin' soul that hadn't no more life in her than a November chicken—and—that was all there was to it, Miss Bethesda reckoned. [Pg 45] And now, here he was hectoring this little girl of his, that always favoured him, and had no look of her mother—hectoring and bullying, just as he used; and Miss Bethesda wondered if the child was a-going to stand it. She wouldn't have stood it, not a day, for her part, if she was his daughter, let alone his—his—wife! And then she found herself wondering whether he would have been so
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