uch as to see my two
friends marry, and though I do think, yes, I really do, Harry, that
young marriages are bad, yet I am quite sure that you and Nelly would be
happy together anyhow. And when do you mean to ask her?"

"What an impatient fellow you are, Jack!" Harry said smiling. "Nelly has
no more idea that I care for her than you had, and I am not going to
tell her so all at once. I don't think," he said gravely, "mark me,
Jack, I don't think Nelly will ever have me, but if patience and love
can win her I shall succeed in the end."

Jack looked greatly surprised again.

"Don't say any more about it, Jack," Harry went on. "It 'ull be a long
job o' work, but I can bide my time; but above all, if you wish me well,
do not even breathe a word to Nelly of what I have said."

From this interview Jack departed much mystified.

"It seems to me," he muttered to himself, "lads when they're in love
get to be like lasses, there's no understanding them. I know nowt of
love myself, and what I've read in books didn't seem natural, but I
suppose it must be true, for even Harry, who I thought I knew as well as
myself, turned as mysterious as--well as a ghost. What does he mean by
he's got to be patient, and to wait, and it will be a long job. If he
likes Nelly and Nelly likes him--and why shouldn't she?--I don't know
why they shouldn't marry in a year or two, though I do hate young
marriages. Anyhow I'll talk to her about the dressmaking idea. If
Harry's got to make love to her, it will be far better for him to do it
here than to have to go walking her out o' Sundays at Birmingham. If she
would but let me help her a bit till she's got into business it would be
as easy as possible."

Jack, however, soon had the opportunity of laying his scheme fully
before Nelly Hardy, and when she had turned off from the road with him
she broke out:

"Oh, Jack, I have such a piece of news; but perhaps you know it, do
you?" she asked jealously.

"No, I don't know any particular piece of news."

"Not anything likely to interest me, Jack?"

"No," Jack said puzzled.

"Honour, you haven't the least idea what it is?"

"Honour, I haven't," Jack said.

"I'm going to be a schoolmistress in place of Miss Bolton."

[Illustration: THE NEW SCHOOLMISTRESS.]

"No!" Jack shouted delightedly; "I am glad, Nelly, I am glad. Why, it is
just the thing for you; Harry and I have been puzzling our heads all the
week as to what you should do!"

"And what