end of the line going up as soon
as the other was weighted down. (I had no thought for the shareholders'
interests, as may be seen; we had to make a new line on firmer ground
before the junction railway was completed.) I told all this at great
length, thankful to fill up my paper. By return letter, I heard that a
second-cousin of my mother's was married to the Independent minister of
Hornby, Ebenezer Holman by name, and lived at Heathbridge proper; the
very Heathbridge I had described, or so my mother believed, for she had
never seen her cousin Phillis Green, who was something of an heiress
(my father believed), being her father's only child, and old Thomas
Green had owned an estate of near upon fifty acres, which must have
come to his daughter. My mother's feeling of kinship seemed to have
been strongly stirred by the mention of Heathbridge; for my father said
she desired me, if ever I went thither again, to make inquiry for the
Reverend Ebenezer Holman; and if indeed he lived there, I was further
to ask if he had not married one Phillis Green; and if both these
questions were answered in the affirmative, I was to go and introduce
myself as the only child of Margaret Manning, born Moneypenny. I was
enraged at myself for having named Heathbridge at all, when I found
what it was drawing down upon me. One Independent minister, as I said
to myself, was enough for any man; and here I knew (that is to say, I
had been catechized on Sabbath mornings by) Mr Dawson, our minister at
home; and I had had to be civil to old Peters at Eltham, and behave
myself for five hours running whenever he asked me to tea at his house;
and now, just as I felt the free air blowing about me up at
Heathbridge, I was to ferret out another minister, and I should perhaps
have to be catechized by him, or else asked to tea at his house.
Besides, I did not like pushing myself upon strangers, who perhaps had
never heard of my mother's name, and such an odd name as it
was--Moneypenny; and if they had, had never cared more for her than she
had for them, apparently, until this unlucky mention of Heathbridge.
Still, I would not disobey my parents in such a trifle, however irksome
it might be. So the next time our business took me to Heathbridge, and
we were dining in the little sanded inn-parlour, I took the opportunity
of Mr Holdsworth's being out of the room, and asked the questions which
I was bidden to ask of the rosy-cheeked maid. I was either
unintelligi