"I reckon we mun go to th' shop for our
bread, an' that's a thing I never thought to come
to so long as I lived."

Bessy looked up from her kneading, surprised.

"I'm sure I'm noan going to eat their nasty
stuff. What for do ye want to get baker's
bread, aunt ? This dough will rise as high as
a kite in a south wind."

"I'm not up to kneading as I could do once;
it welly breaks my back; and when thou'rt off in
London, I reckon we mun buy our bread, first
time in my life."

"I'm not a-going to London," said Bessy,
kneading away with fresh resolution, and growing
very red, either with the idea or the exertion.

"But our Ben is going partner wi' a great
London lawyer, and thou know'st he'll not
tarry long but what he'll fetch thee."

"Now, aunt," said Bessy, stripping her arms
of the dough, but still not looking up, "if that's
all, don't fret yourself. Ben will have twenty
minds in his head afore he settles, eyther in
business or in wedlock. I sometimes wonder,"
she said, with increasing vehemence, "why I
go on thinking on him; for I dunnot think he
thinks on me when I'm out o' sight. I've a
month's mind to try and forget him this
time when he leaves us—that I have!"

"For shame, wench! and he to be planning
and purposing all for thy sake. It wur only
yesterday as he wur talking to thy uncle, and
mapping' it out so clever; only thou seest,
wench, it'll be dree work for us when both thee
and him is gone."

The old woman began to cry the kind of
tearless cry of the aged. Bessy hastened to
comfort her; and the two talked, and grieved,
and hoped, and planned for the days that now
were to be, till they ended, the one in being
consoled, the other in being secretly happy.

Nathan and his son came back from Highminster
that evening, with their business transacted in the
round-about way, which was most satisfactory to
the old man. If he had thought it necessary to
take half as much pains in ascertaining the truth
of the plausible details by which his son bore out
the story of the offered partnership, as he did
in trying to get his money conveyed to London
in the most secure manner, it would have been
well for him. But he knew nothing of all this,
and acted in the way which satisfied his anxiety
best. He came home tired, but content; not in
such high spirits as on the night before, but
as easy in his mind as he could be on the eve of
his son's departure. Bessy, pleasantly agitated
by her aunt's tale of the morning of her
cousin's true love for her—what ardently we
wish we long believe—and the plan which was
to end in their marriage—end to her, the
woman, at least—Bessy looked almost pretty
in her bright, blushing comeliness, and more than
once, as she moved about from kitchen to dairy,
Benjamin pulled her towards him, and gave her
a kiss. To all such proceedings the old couple
were wilfully blind; and, as night drew on, every
one became sadder and quieter, thinking of the
parting that was to be on the morrow. As
the hours drew on, Bessy, too, became
subdued; and, by-and-by, her simple cunning was
exerted to get Benjamin to sit down next his
mother, whose very heart was yearning after
him, as Bessy saw. When once her child
was placed by her side, and she had got
possession of his hand, the old woman kept
stroking it, and murmuring long unused words
of endearment, such as she had spoken to him
while he was yet a little child. But all this was
wearisome to him. As long as he might play
with, and plague, and caress Bessy, he had not
been sleepy; but now he yawned loudly. Bessy
could have boxed his ears for not curbing this
gaping; at any rate, he needed not to have done
it so openly—so almost ostentatiously. His
mother was more pitiful.

"Thou'rt tired, my lad!" said she, putting
her hand fondly on his shoulder; but it fell off,
as he stood up suddenly, and said:

"Yes, deuced tired! I'm off to bed." And
with a rough careless kiss all round, even to
Bessy, as if he was "deuced tired" of playing the
lover, he was gone; leaving the three to gather up
their thoughts slowly, and follow him up-stairs.

He seemed almost impatient at them for rising
betimes to see him off the next morning, and
made no more of a good-by than some such speech
as this: "Well, good folk, when next I see you,
I hope you'll have merrier faces than you have
today. Why, you might be going to a funeral; it's
enough to scare a man from the place; you look
quite ugly to what you did last night, Bess."

He was gone; and they turned into the house,
and settled to the long day's work without many
words about their loss. They had no time for
unnecessary talking, indeed, for much had been
left undone during his short visit that ought to
have been done; and they had now to work
double tides. Hard work was their comfort for
many a long day.

For some time, Benjamin's letters, if not
frequent, were full of exultant accounts of his
well-doing. It is true that the details of his
prosperity were somewhat vague; but the fact was
broadly and unmistakably stated. Then came
longer pauses; shorter letters, altered in tone.
About a year after he had left them, Nathan
received a letter, which bewildered and
irritated him exceedingly. Something had gone
wrong—what, Benjamin did not say—but the
letter ended with a request that was almost
a demand, for the remainder of his father's
savings, whether in the stocking or the
bank. Now the year had not been prosperous
with Nathan; there had been an epidemic
among cattle, and he had suffered along with
his neighbours; and, moreover, the price of
cows, when he had bought some to repair
his wasted stock, was higher than he had ever
remembered it before. The fifteen pounds in the
stocking, which Benjamim Ieft, had diminished
to little more than three; and to have that
required of him in so peremptory a manner!
Before Nathan imparted the contents of this
letter to any one (Bessy and her aunt had gone
to market on a neighbour's cart that day), he got