ather
ashamed, he half-guessed the truth, and turned quickly to another
subject, and said, 'Come along, then, both of you.--This is not the
grandest mill in Ousebank, Miss Cunningham, nor the largest. My brother
Clay's is much bigger; but it's the oldest, and I like it best.'

'Oh, please, say Horatia,' she cried, as the three turned towards
Howroyd's Mill.

'Horatia! Any relation to the great Nelson?' he inquired, looking kindly
down on the eager young face smiling up at him.

'Yes; that's why I am called it; but I like Macaulay's Horatius best, so
I pretend I am named after him.'

'What!

Then out spake brave Horatius...
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods?

Isn't that how it goes?' he asked.

'Not quite; you've left out three lines; but that's the man I mean,' she
replied. 'But I forgot. Perhaps I ought not to have asked to go over
your mill? Perhaps you are busy, and don't want us, like Mr Clay?'

'No, I'm not so busy as he is, and I have always time for Sarah, as she
knows,' he replied; 'though I don't know that a warm summer morning is
the time to go over a mill and into hot rooms.'

'Oh, please, don't discourage me! I've longed to see a mill, and now I am
really going to.'

Sarah privately thought Horatia rather childish, but she did not say
anything; and Mr Howroyd, who did whatever he did thoroughly, took them
over his mill.

'Now, I am going to show you the whole process of making a blanket out of
sacks of woollen rags or wool as it comes off the sheep's back,' he
announced.

'I hope you are not going to make a lesson of it, Uncle Howroyd,'
protested Sarah.

'Of course I am, and am going to question you upon it afterwards,' he
said, his eyes twinkling. 'Only, I hope you won't be like a young man
that came here for a newspaper once, and went away saying he was much
obliged, and had learnt a lot, and then wrote in his paper that we made
blankets of old newspapers.'

'And don't you?' inquired Horatia innocently.

'No, we do not,' said Mr Howroyd with emphasis; 'and it's about time you
did come and see a blanket-mill if that's all you know about it.'

Horatia not only joined merrily in Sarah's laugh, but listened quite
intelligently to Mr William Howroyd's explanation of the material used to
make blankets.

'It's most fearfully interesting,' she said with a sigh.

Mr Howroyd laughed. 'You'd