f they wanted a tailor-made man'; and they laughed
him down, and then he spoke reasonable to them. John Thomas knows what
Yorkshire weavers want, and he just prom-ised them everything they had
set their hearts on; and so they sent him to Parliament, and Mostyn went
to America, where, perhaps, they'll teach him that a man's life is worth
a bit more than a bird or a rabbit. Mostyn is all for preserving game,
and his father was a mean creature. When one thinks of his father, one
has to excuse the young man a little bit."

"I saw a good deal of Mr. Mostyn in New York," said Ethel. "He used to
speak highly of his father."

"I'll warrant he did; and he ought to keep at it, for he's the only one
in this world that will use his tongue for that end. Old Samuel Mostyn
never learned to live godly or even manly, but after his death he ceased
to do evil, and that, I've no doubt, often feels like a blessing to them
that had to live anyway near to him. But my John Thomas!"

"Oh," cried Ethel, laughing, "you must not tell me so much about John
Thomas; he might not like it."

"John Thomas can look all he does and all he says straight in the face.
You may talk of him all day, and find nothing to say that a good girl
like you might not listen to. I should have brought him with us, but
he's away now taking a bit of a holiday. I'm sure he needs it."

"Where is he taking his holiday?"

"Why, he went with a cousin to show him the sights of London; but
somehow they got through London sights very quick, and thought they
might as well put Paris in. I wish they hadn't. I don't trust foreigners
and foreign ways, and they don't have the same kind of money as ours;
but Nicholas says I needn't worry; he is sure that our John Thomas, if
change is to make, will make it to suit himself."

"How soon will he be home?"

"I might say to-day or any other early day. He's been idling for a month
now, and his father says 'the very looms are calling out for him.' I'll
bring him to see you just as soon as he comes home, looms or no looms,
and he'll be fain to come. No one appreciates a pretty girl more than
John Thomas does."

So the days passed sweetly and swiftly onward, and there was no trouble
in them. Such business as was to be done went on behind the closed
doors of the Squire's office, and with no one present but himself, Judge
Rawdon, and the attorneys attached to the Rawdon and Mostyn estates. And
as there were no entanglements and no possible