“Samuel, I must let the farm—I must.”

“Let the farm!  What’s come o’er the woman?”

“Oh, Samuel!” said she, her eyes swimming in tears, “I’m just fain to go and live in Manchester.  I mun let the farm.”

Samuel looked, and pondered, but did not speak for some time.  At last he said—

“If thou hast made up thy mind, there’s no speaking again it; and thou must e’en go.  Thou’lt be sadly pottered wi’ Manchester ways; but that’s not my look out.  Why, thou’lt have to buy potatoes, a thing thou hast never done afore in all thy born life.  Well! it’s not my look out.  It’s rather for me than again me.  Our Jenny is going to be married to Tom Higginbotham, and he was speaking of wanting a bit of land to begin upon.  His father will be dying sometime, I reckon, and then he’ll step into the Croft Farm.  But meanwhile—”

“Then, thou’lt let the farm,” said she, still as eagerly as ever.

“Ay, ay, he’ll take it fast enough, I’ve a notion.  But I’ll not drive a bargain with thee just now; it would not be right; we’ll wait a bit.”

“No; I cannot wait; settle it out at once.”

“Well, well; I’ll speak to Will about it.  I see him out yonder.  I’ll step to him and talk it over.”

Accordingly he went and joined the two lads, and, without more ado, began the subject to them.

“Will, thy mother is fain to go live in Manchester, and covets to let the farm.  Now, I’m willing to take it for Tom Higginbotham; but I like to drive a keen bargain, and there would be no fun chaffering with thy mother just now.  Let thee and me buckle to, my lad! and try and cheat each other; it will warm us this cold day.”

“Let the farm!” said both the lads at once, with infinite surprise.  “Go live in Manchester!”

When Samuel Orme found that the plan had never before been named to either Will or Tom, he would have nothing to do with it, he said, until they had spoken to their mother.  Likely she was “dazed” by her husband’s death; he would wait a day or two, and not name it to any one; not to Tom Higginbotham himself, or may be he would set his heart upon it.  The lads had better go in and talk it over with their mother.  He bade them good-day, and left them.

Will looked very gloomy, but he did not speak till they got near the house.  Then he said—

“Tom, go to th’ shippon, and supper the cows.  I want to speak to mother alone.”

When he entered the house-place, she was sitting before the fire, looking into its embers.  She did not hear him come in: for some time she had lost her quick perception of outward things.

“Mother! what’s this about going to Manchester?” asked he.

“Oh, lad!” said she, turning round, and speaking in a beseeching tone, “I must go and seek our Lizzie.  I cannot rest here for thinking on her.  Many’s the time I’ve left thy father sleeping in bed, and stole to th’ window, and looked and looked my heart out towards Manchester, till I thought I must just set out and tramp over moor and moss straight away till I got there, and then lift up every downcast face till I came to our Lizzie.  And often, when the south wind was blowing soft among the hollows, I’ve fancied (it could but be fancy, thou knowest) I heard her crying upon me; and I’ve thought the voice came closer and closer, till at last it was sobbing out, ‘Mother!’ close to the door; and I’ve stolen down, and undone the latch before now, and looked out into the still, black night, thinking to see her—and turned sick and sorrowful when I heard no living sound but the sough of the wind dying away.  Oh, speak not to me of stopping here, when she may be perishing for hunger, like the poor lad in the parable.”  And now she lifted up her voice, and wept aloud.

Will was deeply grieved.  He had been old enough to be told the family shame when, more than two years before, his father had had his letter to his daughter returned by her mistress in Manchester, telling him that Lizzie had left her service some time—and why.  He had sympathized with his father’s stern anger; though he had thought him something hard, it is true, when he had forbidden his weeping, heart-broken wife to go and try to find her poor sinning child, and declared that henceforth they would have no daughter; that she should be as one dead, and her name never more be named at market or at meal time, in blessing or in prayer.  He had held his peace, with compressed lips and contracted brow, when the neighbours had noticed to him how poor Lizzie’s death had aged both his father and his mother; and how they thought the bereaved couple would never hold up their heads again.  He himself had felt as if that one event had made him old before his time; and had envied Tom the tears he had shed over poor, pretty, innocent, dead Lizzie.  He thought about her sometimes, till he ground his teeth together, and could have struck her down in her shame.  His mother had never named her to him until now.

“Mother!” said he, at last.  “She may be dead.  Most likely she is”

“No, Will; she is not dead,” said Mrs. Leigh.  “God will not let her die till I’ve seen her once again.  Thou dost not know how I’ve prayed and prayed just once again to see her sweet face, and tell her I’ve forgiven her, though she’s broken my heart—she has, Will.”  She could not go on for a minute or two for the choking sobs.  “Thou dost not know that, or thou wouldst not say she could be dead—for God is very merciful, Will; He is: He is much more pitiful than man.  I could never ha’ spoken to thy father as I did to Him—and yet thy father forgave her at last.  The last words he said were that he forgave her.  Thou’lt not be harder than thy father, Will?  Do not try and hinder me going to seek her, for it’s no use.”

Will sat very still for a long time before he spoke.  At last he said, “I’ll not hinder you.  I think she’s dead, but that’s no matter.”

“She’s not dead,” said her mother, with low earnestness.  Will took no notice of the interruption.

“We will all go to Manchester for a twelvemonth, and let the farm to Tom Higginbotham.  I’ll get blacksmith’s work; and Tom can have good schooling for awhile, which he’s always craving for.  At the end of the year you’ll come back, mother, and give over fretting for Lizzie, and think with me that she is dead—and, to my mind, that would be more comfort than to think of her living;” he dropped his voice as he spoke these last words.  She shook her head but made no answer.  He asked again—“Will you, mother, agree to this?”

“I’ll agree to it a-this-ns,” said she.  “If I hear and see nought of her for a twelvemonth, me being in Manchester looking out, I’ll just ha’ broken my heart fairly before the year’s ended, and then I shall know neither love nor sorrow for her any more, when I’m at rest in my grave.  I’ll agree to that, Will.”

“Well, I suppose it must be so.  I shall not tell Tom, mother, why we’re flitting to Manchester.  Best spare him.”

“As thou wilt,” said she, sadly, “so that we go, that’s all.”

Before the wild daffodils were in flower in the sheltered copses round Upclose Farm, the Leighs were settled in their Manchester home; if they could ever grow to consider that place as a home, where there was no garden or outbuilding, no fresh breezy outlet, no far-stretching view, over moor and hollow; no dumb animals to be tended, and, what more than all they missed, no old haunting memories, even though those remembrances told of sorrow, and the dead and gone.

Mrs. Leigh heeded the loss of all these things less than her sons.  She had more spirit in her countenance than she had had for months, because now she had hope; of a sad enough kind, to be sure, but still it was hope.  She performed all her household duties, strange and complicated as they were, and