ke changes. But there it is: the man's
getting restless and be pruning his wings for flight if I know him."

"'Tis beyond belief that any living man should want to fly from you,"
declared Jonas. "I wouldn't come between lovers for a bag of gold; but in
a case like this, feeling for you as I always have done since you kept
your promise to Sarah with such amazing perfection--feeling that, if you
say the word, I'll talk to William White as no man yet have talked to
him."

"Do nothing," she said. "Let nature take its course with William; and if
it takes him away from me, so be it. I can very well endure to part from
the man and, so like as not, when I'm satisfied that things are so, I
shall tell him I understand, and give him his freedom."

"Such largeness of mind I never heard tell about in a woman," answered
Jonas.

And six weeks later William and Milly were cut loose, without any fuss on
her part but to the undying amazement of Thorpe-Michael. And then Jonas
paid his first instalment at dead of night and got a receipt for the same.

'Twas after that the carpenter's anxieties began. He'd hoped that Milly
would be a lot cast down by this reverse and that he'd fill the gap and
comfort her and support her through the sad affair; but she didn't want no
support. In fact she talked most sensible about being jilted and confessed
that it might be all for the best in the long run. "Nought happens save by
the will of Heaven," she said, "and I can look at it with a good
conscience which be a tower of strength, and I can even go so far as to
tell myself that Daisy Newte may make a better wife for Bill than me; for
that's where his eyes are turning."

"Daisy Newte! Good God--the blindness of the bachelor male!" swore Jonas.

And from that day forward he was at her--respectful, but unsleeping.

His fear was that, now she stood free of a man, her nice feeling would
take her from under his roof and of course there was plenty of women who
pointed this out to Milly Bassett; but in her fine way she despised the
mind that thinks evil for choice and said 'twas a pity that good thoughts
was not put into the human heart instead of bad ones.

She said: "If my character can't rise above Thorpe-Michael, 'tis pity. And
the man, or woman, who could whisper a bad thought against Jonas Bird be
beneath my notice and his'n."

And then he offered for her and she took him; and then, after that, of
course, she left his home till the wedding.

A