ur pound a week would she take the step.

And William White, though a good horseman and a champion with the plough
and well thought upon by Farmer Northway, could not yet rise to that
figure, though he went in hope that it might happen. He'd tried round
about on the farms to better his wages, for he was amazing fond of money,
but up to the present nobody seemed to think William was worth more than
three pound ten, or three pound with a cottage.

So Milly waited. She loved William in a temperate sort of way, though
there was points in his character she didn't much hold with; but she'd
given her word to wed him in fullness of time, and she was the sort never
to part from her word for no man. They kept company calm and contented,
with no emotions much to either side, though now-and-a-gain William would
venture to say he thought she might bate her terms and take him for ten
shillings less. But this she weren't prepared to do; and so it stood when
Mrs. Bird died and Milly, who had worshipped the dead woman, came to take
her place till time had worked on Jonas and he was able to look round for
another. For that his Sarah had always wished he should do, well knowing
the poor man couldn't carry on without a spouse.

Jonas was terrible obliged to Milly for coming, and to William for letting
her do so, and he was the soul of goodness in the whole matter and made
William free of his house and saved him the price of many a meal. In fact
William rather exceeded reason in that matter and dropped in at
supper-time too often for decency; but it was his sweetheart and not Jonas
who opened his eyes to his manners and told him there was reason in all
things.

They weren't none too mad in love, as Jonas found out in course of time.
In fact Milly was temperate in all things and had never known to lose her
nerve or temper; while as for William White, he'd got her promise and knew
she was the faithful-unto-death sort and would wait till he could raise
what she considered the proper income for a married woman to begin upon.

The widower soon found out the fashion of sense that belonged to Milly
for, while still in his great grief, he began to talk of spending fifty
pounds of capital on Sarah's grave, and she heard him and advised against.

"As to that," she said, "I knew your dear wife better'n anybody on earth
but yourself, Jonas, and this I will say: if she thought you'd heaved up
fifty pounds' worth of marble stone on her, she wouldn't