y important and legal pronouncement. And when Helmsley
suggested that it was possible Mary might yet marry, he shook his head
in a strongly expressed negative.

"No, David--no!" he said--"She is what we call--yes, I think we call
it--an old maid. This is not a kind term, perhaps, but it is a true one.
She is, I believe, in her thirty-fifth year,--a settled and mature
woman. No man would take her unless she had a little money--enough, let
us say, to help him set up a farm. For if a man takes youth to his
bosom, he does not always mind poverty,--but if he cannot have youth he
always wants money. Always! There is no middle course. Now our good Miss
Deane will never have any money. And, even if she had, we may take
it--yes, I certainly _think_ we may take it--that she would not care to
_buy_ a husband. No--no! Her marrying days are past."

"She is a beautiful woman!" said Helmsley, quietly.

"You think so? Well, well, David! We have got used to her in
Weircombe,--she seems to be a part of the village. When one is familiar
with a person, one often fails to perceive the beauty that is apparent
to a stranger. I believe this to be so--I believe, in general, we may
take it to be so."

And such was the impression that most of the Weircombe folks had about
Mary--that she was just "a part of the village." During his slow
ramblings about the little sequestered place, Helmsley talked to many of
the cottagers, who all treated him with that good-humour and tolerance
which they considered due to his age and feebleness. Young men gave him
a ready hand if they saw him inclined to falter or to stumble over rough
places in the stony street,--little children ran up to him with the
flowers they had gathered on the hills, or the shells they had collected
from the drift on the shore--women smiled at him from their open doors
and windows--girls called to him the "Good morning!" or
"Good-night!"--and by and by he was almost affectionately known as "Old
David, who makes baskets up at Miss Deane's." One of his favourite
haunts was the very end of the "coombe," which,--sharply cutting down to
the shore,--seemed there to have split asunder with volcanic force,
hurling itself apart to right and left in two great castellated rocks,
which were piled up, fortress-like, to an altitude of about four hundred
or more feet, and looked sheer down over the sea. When the tide was high
the waves rushed swirlingly round the base of these natural towers,
formin