way as soon as possible."

"Harry says that he has decided to make his home in or near London."

"Then he is going to leave the mill?"

"Yes."

"What is he thinking of?"

"Music or art. He has no settled plans. He says he must settle his home
first."

"Well, when Harry can give up thee and me for that girl, we need not
think much of ourselves. I feel a bit humiliated by being put below
her."

"Don't look at it in that way, mother."

"Nay, but I can't help it. I wonder wherever Harry got his fool notions.
He was brought up in the mill and for the mill, and I've always heard
say that as the twig is bent the tree is inclined."

"That is only a half-truth, mother. You have the nature of the tree to
reckon with. You may train a willow-tree all you like but you will never
make it an oak or an ash. Here is Harry who has been trained for a
cotton-spinner turns back on us and says he will be an artist or a
singer, and what can we do about it? It is past curing or altering now."

But though the late owner of Hatton Mill had left the clearest
instructions concerning its relation to his two sons, the matter was not
easily settled. He had tied both of them so clearly down to his will in
the matter that it was found impossible to alter a tittle of his
directions. Practically it amounted to a just division of whatever the
mill had made after the tithe for charities had been first deducted. It
gave John a positive right to govern the mill, to decide all disputes,
and to stand in his place as master. It gave to Henry the same financial
standing as his brother, but strictly denied to either son who deserted
the mill any sum of larger amount than five thousand pounds; "to be made
in one payment, and not a shilling more." A codicil, however, three
years later, permitted one brother to buy the other out at a price to be
settled by three large cotton-spinners who had long been friends of the
Hatton family. These directions appeared to be plain enough but there
was delay after delay in bringing the matter to a finish. It was nearly
a month before Harry had his five thousand pounds in his pocketbook, and
during this time he made no progress with his mother. She thought him
selfish and indifferent about the mill and his family. In fact, Harry
was at that time a very much married man, and though John was capable of
considering the value of this affection, John's mother was not. John
looked on it as a safeguard for the future. John's