of his downfall.

Sammy Craddock was in an uncomfortable frame of mind when he left his
companions and turned homeward. It was a bad lookout for himself, and a
bad one for "th' owd lass." His sympathy for the good woman was not of a
sentimental order, but it was sympathy nevertheless. He had been a good
husband, if not an effusive one. "Th' owd lass" had known her only rival
in The Crown and his boon companions; and upon the whole, neither had
interfered with her comfort, though it was her habit and her pleasure
to be loud in her condemnation and disparagement of both. She would not
have felt her connubial life complete without a grievance, and Sammy's
tendency to talk politics over his pipe and beer was her standard
resource.

When he went out, he had left her lying down in the depths of despair,
but when he entered the house, he found her up and dressed, seated by
the window in the sun, a bunch of bright flowers before her.

"Well now!" he exclaimed. "Tha niwer says! What's takken thee? I thowt
tha wur bedrid fur th' rest o' thy days."

"Howd thy tongue," she answered with a proper touch of wifely irritation
at his levity. "I've had a bit o' company an' it's chirked me up summat.
That little lass o' th' owd Parson has been settin wi' me."

"That's it, is it?"

"Aye, an' I tell yo' Sammy, she's a noice little wench. Why, she's
getten th' ways o' a woman, stead o' a lass,--she's that theer quoiet
an' steady, an' she's getten a face as pretty as her ways, too."

Sammy scratched his head and reflected.

"I mak' no doubt on it," he answered. "I mak' no doubt on it. It wur
her, tha knows, as settlet th' foight betwixt th' lads an' th' dog. I'm
wonderin' why she has na been here afore."

"Well now!" taking up a stitch in her knitting, "that's th' queer part
o' it. Whatten yo' think th'little thing said, when I axt her why? She
says, 'It did na seem loike I was needed exactly, an' I did na know as
yo'd care to ha' a stranger coom wi'out bein' axt.' Just as if she had
been nowt but a neebor's lass, and would na tak' th' liberty."

"That's noan th' owd Parson's way," said Sammy.

"Th' owd Parson!" testily; "I ha' no patience wi' him. Th' little lass
is as different fro' him as chalk is fro' cheese."

CHAPTER XVII - The Member of Parliament

The morning following, Anice's father being called away by business left
Riggan for a few days' absence, and it was not until after he had gone,
that the story of Mr. Ha