harboured in Dean Woods," he
said, "and her word be my law for evermore."

But nobody else heard the truth that Wade was the unknown sinner, for
Millicent felt as her father would have been cruel vexed about it.

They was wed in the summer and Wade found open-air work to his taste not a
mile from their home. But often, good lovers still, they'll go to Hound's
Pool for memory's sake and sit and hear Weaver Knowles working unseen
about his task.

No. IX

THE PRICE OF MILLY BASSETT

Memory, as we old folk know, be the plaything of time, and when trouble
comes and we wilt and reckon life's ended, the years roll unresting on,
and the storm passes, and the dark breaks to grey again, and, may be, even
the sun's self peeps forth once more. For our little wits ain't built to
hold grief for ever, else the world would be a lunatic asylum and not the
tolerable sane and patient place we mostly find it.

It was like that with my friend, Jonas Bird. When his wife died, and left
him and three young childer, his light went out, and though no more than
thirty-five years of age, he felt 'twas the end of the world. He comforted
his cruel sufferings with the thought of a wonnerful tombstone to Sarah
Bird, and there's no doubt that tombstones, though they can't make or mar
the dead, have, time and again, softened the lot of the living. And you
may say that poor Sarah's mark in the churchyard was the subject that
first began to calm Jonas. But it did a lot more than that.

He was a sandy-headed man with old-fashioned whiskers, a long face like a
horse, blue eyes and a wondering expression. In fact, life did astonish
him a good bit, and being a simple soul, most things that happened were
apt to puzzle him. A carpenter by trade, he did very well in that walk of
life and had saved money. But he had long lived for one thing only, and
that was Sarah, and when she dropped sudden and left him with two little
boys and a girl babe, he was more puzzled than ever and went in a proper
miz-maze of perplexity that such things could be.

Everybody liked Jonas, for he was a kindly and well-intending creature,
and his wife had been such another, and a good few women rushed to the
rescue when the blow fell. And his master, a childless man and very fond
of Bird, offered to adopt one of his boys and take the lad off his hands.
But Jonas clung to all three, because, as he truly said, they each had a
good bit of their mother in 'em and he couldn't