whose practice
was more than compensated by the former greatness of his family. He
had uttered thoughts before they were weighed, and almost before they
were shaped. They had expressed in a certain sense his feeling at
Fitzpiers's news, but yet they were not right. Looking on the ground,
and planting his stick at each tread as if it were a flag-staff, he
reached his own precincts, where, as he passed through the court, he
automatically stopped to look at the men working in the shed and
around. One of them asked him a question about wagon-spokes.

"Hey?" said Melbury, looking hard at him. The man repeated the words.

Melbury stood; then turning suddenly away without answering, he went up
the court and entered the house. As time was no object with the
journeymen, except as a thing to get past, they leisurely surveyed the
door through which he had disappeared.

"What maggot has the gaffer got in his head now?" said Tangs the elder.
"Sommit to do with that chiel of his! When you've got a maid of yer
own, John Upjohn, that costs ye what she costs him, that will take the
squeak out of your Sunday shoes, John! But you'll never be tall enough
to accomplish such as she; and 'tis a lucky thing for ye, John, as
things be. Well, he ought to have a dozen--that would bring him to
reason. I see 'em walking together last Sunday, and when they came to
a puddle he lifted her over like a halfpenny doll. He ought to have a
dozen; he'd let 'em walk through puddles for themselves then."

Meanwhile Melbury had entered the house with the look of a man who sees
a vision before him. His wife was in the room. Without taking off his
hat he sat down at random.

"Luce--we've done it!" he said. "Yes--the thing is as I expected. The
spell, that I foresaw might be worked, has worked. She's done it, and
done it well. Where is she--Grace, I mean?"

"Up in her room--what has happened!"

Mr. Melbury explained the circumstances as coherently as he could. "I
told you so," he said. "A maid like her couldn't stay hid long, even
in a place like this. But where is Grace? Let's have her down.
Here--Gra-a-ace!"

She appeared after a reasonable interval, for she was sufficiently
spoiled by this father of hers not to put herself in a hurry, however
impatient his tones. "What is it, father?" said she, with a smile.

"Why, you scamp, what's this you've been doing? Not home here more than
six months, yet, instead of confining yourself to your