and gave a gentle sigh as she saw herself again a sprightly wench chased at Whitsuntide round the ring at “kiss in the ring” Or “choose the lad that you love best,” and found herself a willing captive, but panting and struggling still, whilst Dick saluted the rosy cheek. For at the Sunday School treats at “Whis-sunday,” all classes were on a level, and even the parson himself must run as fast as legs could carry him if tap of maiden greatly daring fell upon his shoulder, or her kerchief dropped at his feet.

Whether it was the necessity of having some other companionship than old Betty for the young niece so solemnly committed to his charge, or whether he was weary of his bachelor solitude and felt the need of a woman’s presence in the old homestead in which he had been born and which he had inherited on his father’s death, certain it is that Jabez Tinker began seriously to think about a wife. He was now nearing his fiftieth year, and the romance of youth—love’s young dream—he sadly told himself was not for him. Perhaps he had never been young; but be that as it may he was now a staid, prosaic man, who looked all his years and more, his whole soul in his business, in parish affairs and in other spheres in which the gentler emotions have no concern. Business was with him as the breath of his nostrils. Had he liked, he could have retired on a fair competence; had he been asked he could have given no solid reason why he should continue to toil and moil and put by money. Dorothy was his nearest relative, though of remoter ones—cousins and half-cousins, agnates and cognates as the Roman lawyers said, he had them by the score. But it certainly was neither for Dorothy nor other relative, near or distant, he spent more and more time in mill and counting-house, planning fresh outlets for the produce of his looms, building additions to the old mill, and watching eagerly every improvement in the machinery of his trade. He did it simply because he must, as a successful lawyer takes briefs upon briefs, or a popular doctor case upon case. And he resolved that in his choice of a bride he would look for money that would buy out Dick’s share in the business, and leave him sole master of Wilberlee mill.

And in this mood his thoughts turned to Martha Thorpe; he scarce knew why, except, perhaps, that he was used to the sight of her Sunday after Sunday, and at the weekly services and social functions of the chapel and Sunday school. All the world knew that Martha would have money, but none the less did all the world—of Holmfirth—gape and exclaim with its “Did yo’ evver? “and its “Aw nivver did,” when the reserved master of Wilberlee was seen, not once or twice, but, in time, 

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