Presently, Sidney lighted a cigarette. He was of those young men whose
delicate mouths seem to have been fashioned for the nice conduct of a
cigarette. And he had a way of blowing out the smoke that secretly
ravished every feminine beholder. Horace still held to his boyhood's
principles; but he envied Sidney a little.

At the conclusion of the festivity these two women naturally could not
be permitted to walk home alone. And, naturally, also, the four could
not walk abreast on the narrow pavements. Horace went first with Mrs
Penkethman. He was mad with anxiety to appropriate Ella, but he dared
not. It would not have been quite correct; it would have been, as they
say in Bursley, too thick. Besides, there was the question of age.
Horace was over thirty, and Mrs Penkethman was also--over thirty;
whereas Sidney was twenty-one, and so was Ella. Hence Sidney walked
behind with Ella, and the procession started in silence. Horace did not
look round too often--that would not have been quite proper--but
whenever he did look round the other couple had lagged farther and
farther behind, and Ella seemed perfectly to have recovered her speech.
At length he looked round, and lo! they had not turned the last corner;
and they arrived at Mrs Penkethman's cottage at Hillport a quarter of
an hour after their elders.

IV

The wedding cost Horace a large sum of money. You see, he could not do
less than behave handsomely by the bride, owing to his notorious
admiration for her; and of course the bridegroom needed setting up.
Horace practically furnished their home for them out of his own pocket;
it was not to be expected that Sidney should have resources. Further,
Sidney as a single man, paying seven-and-six a week for board and
lodging, could no doubt struggle along upon three pounds weekly. But
Sidney as a husband, with the nicest girl in the world to take care of,
and house-rent to pay, could not possibly perform the same feat.
Although he did no more work at the manufactory--Horace could not have
been so unbrotherly as to demand it--Horace paid him eight pounds a
week instead of three.

And the affair cost Horace a good deal besides money. But what could
Horace do? He decidedly would not have wished to wreck the happiness of
two young and beautiful lives, even had he possessed the power to do
so. And he did not possess the power. Those two did not consult Horace
before falling in love. They merely fell in love, and there wa