shock, and Phoebe was but a year old when her mother died. Further, it need only be mentioned that the miller had heard of Will’s courting more than once, but absolutely refused to allow the matter serious consideration. The romance was no more than philandering of children in his eyes.

“Will—eh? Well, my son, and how can I serve you?” asked the master of Monks Barton, kindly enough. He recrossed his legs, settled in his leather chair, and continued the smoking of a long clay pipe.

“Just this, Mr. Lyddon,” began Will abruptly. “You calls me your ‘son’ as a manner o’ speech, but I wants to be no less in fact.”

“You ban’t here on that fool’s errand, bwoy, surely? I thought I’d made my mind clear enough to Phoebe six months ago.”

“Look you here now. I be earnin’ eighteen shillings a week an’ a bit awver; an’ I be sure of Morgan’s berth as head-keeper presently; an’ I’m a man as thinks.”

“That’s brave talk, but what have ’e saved, lad?” inquired Mr. Blee.

The lover looked round at him sharply.

“I thought you was out the room,” he said. “I be come to talk to Miller, not you.”

“Nay, nay, Billy can stay and see I’m not tu hard ’pon ’e,” declared Mr. Lyddon. “He axed a proper question. What’s put by to goody in the savings’ bank, Will?”

“Well—five pounds; and ’t will be rose to ten by Christmas, I assure ’e.”

“Fi’ puns! an’ how far ’s that gwaine?”

“So far as us can make it, in coourse.”

“Doan’t you see, sonny, this ban’t a fair bargain? I’m not a hard man—”

“By gor! not hard enough by a powerful deal,” said Billy.

“Not hard on youth; but this match, so to call it, looks like mere moonshine. Theer ’s nought to it I can see—both childer, and neither with as much sense as might sink a floatin’ straw.”

“We love each other wi’ all our hearts and have done more ’n half a year. Ban’t that nothing?”

“I married when I was forty-two,” remarked the miller, reflectively, looking down at his fox-head slippers, the work of Phoebe’s fingers.

“An’ a purty marryin’ time tu!” declared Mr. Blee. “Look at me,” he continued, “parlous near seventy, and a bacherlor-man yet.”

“Not but Widow Comstock will have ’e if you ax her a bit oftener. Us all knows that,” said the young lover, with great stratagem.

Billy chuckled, and rubbed his wrinkles.

“Time enough, time enough,” he answered, “but you—scarce out o’ clouts—why, ’t is playin’ at a holy thing, that’s what ’t is—same as Miss Phoebe, when she was a li’l wee cheel, played at bein’ parson in her night-gownd, and got welted for it, tu, by her gude faither.”

“We ’m both in earnest anyway—me and Phoebe.”

“So am I,” replied the miller, sitting up and putting down his pipe; “so am I in earnest, and wan word ’s gude as a hunderd in a pass like this. You must hear the truth, an’ that never broke no bones. You ’m no more fitted to have a wife than that tobacco-jar—a hot-headed, wild-fire of a bwoy—”

“A right Jack-o’-Lantern, as everybody knaws,” suggested Mr. Blee.

“Ess fay, ’tis truth. Shifting and oncertain as the marsh gallopers on the moor bogs of a summer night. Awnly a youth’s faults, you mind; but still faults. No, no, my lad, you’ve got to fight your life’s battle and win it, ’fore you’m a mate for any gal; an’ you’ve got to begin by fightin’ yourself, an’ breaking an’ taming yourself, an’ getting yourself well in hand. That’s a matter of more than months for the best of us.”

“And then?” said Will, “after ’tis done? though I’m not allowin’ I’m anything but a ripe man as I stand here afore you now.”

“Then I’d say, ‘I’m glad to see you grawed into a credit to us all, Will Blanchard, and worth your place in the order o’ things; but you doan’t marry Phoebe Lyddon—never, never, never, not while I’m above ground.’”

His slow eyes looked calmly and kindly at Will, and he smiled into the hot, young, furious face.

“That’s your last word then?”

“It is, my lad.”

“And you won’t give a reason?”

“The reason is, ‘what’s bred in the bone comes out in the flesh.’ I knawed your faither. You’m as volatile as him wi’out his better paarts.”

“Leave him wheer he lies—underground. If he’d lived ’stead of bein’ cut off from life, you’d ’a’ bin proud to knaw him.”

“A gypsy-man and no better, Will,” said Mr. Blee. “Not but what he made a gude end, I allow.”

“Then I’ll be up and away. I’ve spoke ’e fair, Miller—fair an’ straight—an’ so you to me. You won’t allow this match. Then we’ll wed wi’out your blessin’, an’ sorry I shall be.”

“If that’s your tune, my young rascal, I’ll speak again! Phoebe’s under age, remember that, and so sure as you dare take her a yard from her awn door you’ll suffer for it. ’Tis a clink job, you mind—a prison business; and what’s more, you ’m pleased to speak so plain that I will tu, and tell ’e this. If you dare to lift up your eyes to my child again, or stop her in the way, or have speech with her, I’ll set p’liceman ’pon ’e! For a year and more she ’m not her awn mistress; and, at the end of that time, if she doan’t get better sense than to tinker arter a harum-scarum young jackanapes like you, she ban’t a true Lyddon. Now be off with ’e an’ doan’t dare to look same way Phoebe ’s walkin’, no more, else theer’ll be trouble for ’e.”

“Wonnerful language, an’ in a nutshell,” commented Billy, as, blowing rather hard, the miller made an end of his warning.

“Us’ll leave it theer, then, Mr. Lyddon; and you’ll live to be sorry ever you said them words to me. Ess fay, you’ll live to sing different; for when two ’s set ’pon a matter o’ marryin’, ban’t fathers nor mothers, nor yet angels, be gwaine to part ’em. Phoebe an’ me will be man an’ wife some day, sure ’s the sun ’s brighter ’n the mune. So now you knaw. Gude night to ’e.”

He took up his hat and departed; Billy held up his hands in mute amazement; but the miller showed no emotion and relighted his pipe.

“The rising generation do take my breath away twenty times a day,” said Mr. Blee. “To think o’ that bwoy, in li’l frocks awnly yesterday, standin’ theer frontin’ two aged men wi’ such bouldacious language!”

“What would you do, Billy, if the gal was yourn?”

“Same as you, to a hair. Bid her drop the chap for gude ’n all. But theer ’s devil’s pepper in that Blanchard. He ain’t done with yet.”

“Well, well, he won’t shorten my sleep, I promise you. Near two years is a long time to the young. Lord knaws wheer a light thing like him will be blawed to, come two years. Time ’s on my side for certain. And Phoebe ’s like to change also.”

“Why, a woman’s mind ’s no more ’n a feather in a gale of wind at her time o’ life; though to tell her so ’s the sure way to make her steadfast.”

A moment later Phoebe herself entered. She had heard Will depart and now, in a fever of impatience, crept with bright, questioning eyes to her father’s chair. Whereupon Mr. Blee withdrew in a violent hurry. No one audibly desired him to do so, but a side-look from the girl was enough.

CHAPTER III
EXIT WILL

Phoebe’s conversation with her father occupied a space of time extending over just two minutes. He met her eager eyes with a smile, patted her head, pinched her ear, and by his manner awakened a delicious flutter of hope in the girl before he spoke. When, therefore, Phoebe learned that Will was sent about his business for ever, and must henceforth be wholly dismissed from her mind, the shock and disappointment of