s own wife and the miller's seated in the hall. It was
not often that Mrs. Brattle made her way to the Vicarage, but when
she did so she was treated with great consideration. It was still
August, and the weather was very hot, and she had walked up across
the water mead, and was tired. A glass of wine and a biscuit were
pressed upon her, and she was encouraged to sit and say a few
indifferent words, before she was taken into the study and told to
commence the story which had brought her so far. And there was a
most inviting topic for conversation. The mill and the mill premises
were to be put in order by the landlord. Mrs. Brattle affected to
be rather dismayed than otherwise by the coming operations. The
mill would have lasted their time, she thought, "and as for them as
were to come after them,--well! she didn't know. As things was now,
perhaps, it might be that after all Sam would have the mill." But the
trouble occasioned by the workmen would be infinite. How were they to
live in the mean time, and where were they to go? It soon appeared,
however, that all this had been already arranged. Milling must of
course be stopped for a month or six weeks. "Indeed, sir, feyther
says that there won't be no more grinding much before winter."
But the mill was to be repaired first, and then, when it became
absolutely necessary to dismantle the house, they were to endeavour
to make shift, and live in the big room of the mill itself, till
their furniture should be put back again. Mrs. Fenwick, with ready
good nature, offered to accommodate Mrs. Brattle and Fanny at the
Vicarage; but the old woman declined with many protestations of
gratitude. She had never left her old man yet, and would not do so
now. The weather would be mild for awhile, and she thought that they
could get through. By this time the glass of wine had been sipped
to the bottom, and the parson, mindful of his sermon, had led the
visitor into his study. She had come to tell that Sam at last had
returned home.

"Why didn't you bring him up with you, Mrs. Brattle?" Here was a
question to ask of an old lady, whose dominion over her son was
absolutely none! Sam had become so frightfully independent that he
hardly regarded the word of his father, who was a man pre-eminently
capable of maintaining authority, and would no more do a thing
because his mother told him than because the wind whistled.

"I axed him to come up, not just with me, but of hisself, Mr.
Fenwick; but