hem a hundred times before, she laughed consumedly
at each, as if they were all new to her. Her appreciation delighted her
husband. When Mavis rose to take her leave, Trivett, despite her
protest, insisted upon accompanying her part of the way to Melkbridge.
She bade a warm goodbye to kindly Mrs Trivett, who pressed her to come
again and as often as she could spare the time.

"It do Trivett so much good to see a new face. It help him with his
music," she explained.

"We might walk back by the canal," suggested Trivett. "It look zo
zolemn by moonlight."

Upon Mavis' assenting, they joined the canal where the tow-path is at
one with the road by the railway bridge.

"How long have you been in Pennington?" asked Mavis presently.

"A matter o' ten years. We come from North Petherton, near Tarnton."

"Then you didn't know my father?"

"No, miss, though I've heard tark of him in Melkbridge."

"Do you know anything of Mr Perigal?" she asked presently.

"Which one: the old or the young un?"

"Th--the old one."

"A queer old stick, they zay, though I've never set eyes on un. He
don't hit it off with his zon, neither."

"Whose fault is that?"

"Both. Do 'ee know young Mr Charles?"

"I've met him."

"H'm!"

"What's the matter with him?"

Mr Trivett solemnly shook his head.

"What does that mean?"

"It's hard to zay. But from what I zee an' from what I hear tell, he be
a deal too clever."

"Isn't that an advantage nowadays?"

"Often. But he's quarrelled with his feyther and zoon gets tired of
everything he takes up."

Trivett's remarks increased Mavis' sympathy for Perigal. The more he
had against him, the more necessary it was for those who liked him to
make allowance for flaws in his disposition. Kindly encouragement might
do much where censure had failed.

Days passed without Mavis seeing more of Perigal. His indifference to
her existence hurt the little vanity that she possessed. At the same
time, she wondered if the fact of her not having written to thank him
for the violets had anything to do with his making no effort to seek
her out. Her perplexities on the matter made her think of him far more
than she might have done had she met him again. If Perigal had wished
to figure conspicuously in the girl's thoughts, he could not have
chosen a better way to achieve that result.

Some three weeks after her meeting with him, she was sitting in her
nook reading, when she was conscious of a feeling of he