e richer woman's house little Palmley straightway went.

'Well, in some way or other--how, it was never exactly known--the
thriving woman, Mrs. Winter, sent the little boy with a message to the
next village one December day, much against his will. It was getting
dark, and the child prayed to be allowed not to go, because he would be
afraid coming home. But the mistress insisted, more out of
thoughtlessness than cruelty, and the child went. On his way back he had
to pass through Yalbury Wood, and something came out from behind a tree
and frightened him into fits. The child was quite ruined by it; he
became quite a drivelling idiot, and soon afterward died.

'Then the other woman had nothing left to live for, and vowed vengeance
against that rival who had first won away her lover, and now had been the
cause of her bereavement. This last affliction was certainly not
intended by her thriving acquaintance, though it must be owned that when
it was done she seemed but little concerned. Whatever vengeance poor
Mrs. Palmley felt, she had no opportunity of carrying it out, and time
might have softened her feelings into forgetfulness of her supposed
wrongs as she dragged on her lonely life. So matters stood when, a year
after the death of the child, Mrs. Palmley's niece, who had been born and
bred in the city of Exonbury, came to live with her.

'This young woman--Miss Harriet Palmley--was a proud and handsome girl,
very well brought up, and more stylish and genteel than the people of our
village, as was natural, considering where she came from. She regarded
herself as much above Mrs. Winter and her son in position as Mrs. Winter
and her son considered themselves above poor Mrs. Palmley. But love is
an unceremonious thing, and what in the world should happen but that
young Jack Winter must fall wofully and wildly in love with Harriet
Palmley almost as soon as he saw her.

'She, being better educated than he, and caring nothing for the village
notion of his mother's superiority to her aunt, did not give him much
encouragement. But Longpuddle being no very large world, the two could
not help seeing a good deal of each other while she was staying there,
and, disdainful young woman as she was, she did seem to take a little
pleasure in his attentions and advances.

'One day when they were picking apples together, he asked her to marry
him. She had not expected anything so practical as that at so early a
time, and was led