e dear old Squire seemed "off his feed;" he did
not think it was any good worrying him at present. Bee, stroking the
mare's neck, looked at him shyly and slowly.

"It's about George," she said; "I know it's about George! Oh, Cecil! I
do wish I had been a boy!"

Young Tharp assented in spite of himself:

"Yes; it must be beastly to be a girl."

A faint flush coloured Bee's cheeks. It hurt her a little that he should
agree; but her lover was passing his hand down the mare's shin.

"Father is rather trying," she said. "I wish George would marry."

Cecil Tharp raised his bullet head; his blunt, honest face was extremely
red from stooping.

"Clean as a whistle," he said; "she's all right, Bee. I expect George
has too good a time."

Bee turned her face away and murmured:

"I should loathe living in London." And she, too, stooped and felt the
mare's shin.

To Mrs. Pendyce in these days the hours passed with incredible slowness.
For thirty odd years she had waited at once for everything and nothing;
she had, so to say, everything she could wish for, and--nothing, so that
even waiting had been robbed of poignancy; but to wait like this, in
direct suspense, for something definite was terrible. There was hardly
a moment when she did not conjure up George, lonely and torn by
conflicting emotions; for to her, long paralysed by Worsted Skeynes, and
ignorant of the facts, the proportions of the struggle in her son's
soul appeared Titanic; her mother instinct was not deceived as to the
strength of his passion. Strange and conflicting were the sensations
with which she awaited the result; at one moment thinking, 'It is
madness; he must promise--it is too awful!' at another, 'Ah! but how can
he, if he loves her so? It is impossible; and she, too--ah! how awful it
is!'

Perhaps, as Mr. Pendyce had said, she was romantic; perhaps it was only
the thought of the pain her boy must suffer. The tooth was too big, it
seemed to her; and, as in old days, when she took him to Cornmarket to
have an aching tooth out, she ever sat with his hand in hers while the
little dentist pulled, and ever suffered the tug, too, in her own mouth,
so now she longed to share this other tug, so terrible, so fierce.

Against Mrs. Bellew she felt only a sort of vague and jealous aching;
and this seemed strange even to herself--but, again, perhaps she was
romantic.

Now it was that she found the value of routine. Her days were so well
and fully occupied