he confidence touched him. "I do, Steve. Don't be in a hurry, my lad.
There are some things in life that are worth a deal more than
money,--things that money cannot buy. Let money take a backward place."
Then he voluntarily asked about the processes of spinning and weaving
wool, and in spite of his prejudices was a little excited over
Stephen's startling statements and statistics.

Indeed, the young man was so interesting, that Sandal went with him to
the hall-door, and stood there with him, listening to his graphic
descriptions of the wool-rooms at the top of the great Yorkshire mills.
"I'd like well to take you through one, squire. Fleeces? You would be
wonder-struck. There are long staple and short staple; silky wool and
woolly wool; black fleeces from the Punjaub, and curly white ones from
Bombay; long warps from Russia, short ones from Buenos Ayres; little
Spanish fleeces, and our own Westmoreland and Cumberland skins, that
beat every thing in the world for size. And then to see them turned into
cloth as fast as steam can do it! My word, squire, there never was magic
or witchcraft like the steam and metal witchcraft of a Yorkshire mill."

"Well, well, Steve. I don't fret myself because I am set in stiller
ways, and I don't blame those who like the hurryment of steam and metal.
Each of us has God's will to do, and our own race to run; and may we
prosper."

After this, Steve, sometimes gaining and sometimes losing, gradually
won his way back to the squire's liking. September proved to be an
unusually fair month; and to the lovers it was full of happiness, for
early in it their relation to each other was fully recognized; and
Stephen had gone in and out of the pleasant "Seat," dayshine and dark,
as the acknowledged lover of Charlotte Sandal. The squire, upon the
whole, submitted gracefully: he only stipulated that for some time,
indefinitely postponed, the subject of marriage was not to be taken into
consideration. "I could not bear it any road. I could not bear it yet,
Stephen. Wait your full time, and be glad to wait. So few young men will
understand that to pluck the blossom is to destroy the fruit."

Towards the end of September, there was a letter from Sophia dated
Florence. Some letters are like some individuals, they carry with them a
certain unpleasant atmosphere. None of Sophia's epistles had been very
satisfactory; for they were so short, and yet so definitely pinned to
Julius, that they were but commenta