cise," she remarked with a
somewhat wistful look at their glowing faces; "but it's not for me," she
added. "There's another thing you've taught me. I've often wondered,
sittin' alone here--supposin' as there had really been a Mr. Lobb--how I
could have done with the children. Now, my dears, it's pleasant havin'
your company; but there's an anxiety about it that I find wearin'.
A week of it, and I'd be losin' flesh. And the moral is, if you're an
artist you must make sacrifices."

The Fat Lady sighed. She sighed again and more heavily as, having
extinguished the lamp, she composed herself to sleep.

Early next morning they bade her farewell, and departed with her
blessing. Now Tilda the match-maker had arranged in her mind a very
pretty scene of surprise and reconciliation. But, as she afterwards
observed, "there's times when you worrit along for days together, an' no
seemin' good of it; an' then one mornin' you wakes up to find everything
goin' like clockwork, an' yerself standin' by, an' watchin', an' feelin'
small."

So it happened this morning as they drew near to Weston. There in the
morning light they saw the broken lock with a weir beside it, and over
the weir a tumble of flashing water; an islet or two, red with stalks of
loosestrife; a swan bathing in the channel between. And there, early as
they came, Sam Bossom stood already on the lock-bank; but not awaiting
them, and not alone. For at a distance of six paces, perhaps, stood the
girl of the blue sun-bonnet, confronting him.

Tilda gasped.

"And I got 'er promise to wait till I called 'er. It's--it's
unwomanly!"

Sam turned and caught sight of them. He made as though to leave the
girl standing, and came a pace towards them, but halted. There was a
great awe in his face.

"'Enery's broke it off!" he announced slowly, and his voice trembled.

"I could a-told yer that." Tilda's manner was short, as she produced
the letter and handed it to him. "There--go to 'im," she said in a
gentler voice as she slipped past the girl. "'E's good, as men go; and
'e's suffered."

She walked resolutely away down the path.

"But where are you going?" asked Arthur Miles, running and catching up
with her.

"Farther on, as usual," she snapped. "Can't yer see they don't want
us?"

"But why?"

"Because they're love-makin'."

He made no answer, and she glanced at his face. Its innocent wonderment
nettled her the more, yet she had no notion why. She