done. How blind
he had been! With knowledge, caution came. Fred made up his mind that he
must no more walk with Nancy till he was prepared to do so in his true
character--that of a lover. This would be impossible till he could offer
a home to Nancy. It might be that his father would even turn the Forests
away, if he suspected his son's affection for their only child. He could
not risk that. So two months passed.

Fred was organist at the parish church and had been composing songs, as
we have seen. Most of them had come back to him accompanied by polite
notes of refusal; one or two had come out and failed to attract any
notice. Now, "Winged Love" was proving a success--so he had resolved to
speak to Nancy herself, though not yet to the parents on either side.

It was a pity he didn't take the straightforward course--it pays best,
did people but know it. Had Fred Hurst gone to the house boldly that
night, it might, as I have said, have saved much misery. Had he glanced
through the uncurtained window of the "house-place," I think he would
certainly have gone in, for he would have seen Nancy in tears.

Mrs. Forest was a woman whose temper could not have been sweet under the
best of conditions. It will be understood, then, that it developed into
something very bad indeed under the worrying influence of a master like
Mr. Hurst, who was never satisfied, and whose method of dealing with
those he employed was one of incessant bullying. He was, moreover,
subject to delusions about being cheated, and his suspiciousness was
always in evidence.

This last fault was also one of Mrs. Forest's own, and if anything a
worse one than her bad temper, and was not infrequently the occasion of
an exhibition of the latter. When Nancy got home from Miss Michin's on
the night when Fred Hurst tried to meet her, she found her mother in one
of her worst moods. Mr. Hurst had been there all the morning,
superintending the killing and packing of the turkeys for the London
market. Nancy had made up her mind on her way home to ask her mother for
a little money to buy herself some new gloves. She resolved to make her
request at once on entering the house-place, where her mother
was--partly from a desire to get what generally proved a disagreeable
business over as soon as possible, and more, perhaps, because she saw
her father sitting smoking his pipe in the chimney-corner. John Forest
usually supported his daughter, who was a great favourite of his.