y bed so lang as thou bides wi'
me. I'll mak up a bed for misen i' t' kitchen on t' lang-settle."

A grateful expression came over the girl's face, but she made no move in
the direction of the inner room. Silence prevailed for some time until
the weaver asked: "Is there owt I can do for thee, or owt that thou's
gotten to tell me, lass? It's been a dree day for thee, to-day; ay, an'
mony a day afore to-day, I reckon."

This reference to the happenings of the morning brought tears to the
girl's eyes, and it was some time before she could summon up courage to
speak.

"Don't mind me," she said at last; "I'll be better to-morn. But he
didn't ought to hae browt shame on me i' t' way he's done. It wasn't my
fault mother left him. I'd allus been a gooid lass to him, choose what
fowks say."

Step by step the weaver led her on to tell him the story of what had led
up to the shameful transaction in the market-place. It was no mere
curiosity that moved him, but a realisation that there could be no peace
of mind for Mary Whittaker until she had found relief by unburdening her
tortured soul. The weaver's gentle ways and tactful bearing were slowly
winning her heart, and, painful though the recital of her past history
was for her, Parfitt knew that it would bring relief. It was a long
story that Mary had to tell. She had little art of narrative, and her
endeavours to shield both her mother and stepfather as far as possible
from blame impeded the flow of her words. Reduced to plain terms, her
story ran as follows:--

Mary Whittaker was a girl of fourteen when her mother had married Samuel
Learoyd. Of her father she knew nothing. He had died when she was a
baby. From the first the Learoyds had proved an ill-matched pair. Anne
Learoyd, her mother, had been brought up in Leeds, and having been used
to all the excitements of life in a big town, found the solitary farm
lonesome. Samuel Learoyd, though genial enough at times in the society
of his male friends, was capricious. His temper was often sullen, and
when in one of his gloomy moods he would spend the whole evening in his
farm kitchen in morose silence. This state of mind was in part due to
physical infirmity. As a child he had been subject to epileptic fits,
and though these grew less frequent as he advanced to manhood, he never
entirely shook them off, and during his married life a long spell of
gloomy misanthropy would sometimes end in the return of one of these
attacks. He w