getting up and telling him to turn me out if he won't speak a word to
me." But Fanny had softened her, and encouraged her, bidding her wait
still again, explaining the sorrow that weighed upon their father's
heart as well as she could without saying a single cruel word as to
Carry's past life. Fanny's task was not easy, and it was made the
harder by their mother's special tenderness towards Carry. "The less
she says and the more she does, the better for her," said Fanny to
her mother. "You shouldn't let her talk about father." Mrs. Brattle
did not attempt to argue the matter with her elder daughter, but she
found it to be quite out of her power to restrain Carry's talking.

During these two months old Brattle had not even seen either his
landlord or the Vicar. They had both been at the mill, but the
miller had kept himself up among his grist, and had not condescended
to come down to them. Nor had he even, since Carry's return, been
seen in Bullhampton, or even up on the high road leading to it. He
held no communion with men other than was absolutely necessary for
his business, feeling himself to be degraded, not so much by his
daughter's fall as by his concession to his fallen daughter. He would
sit out in the porch of an evening, and smoke his pipe; but if he
heard a footstep on the lane he would retreat, and cross the plank
and get among the wheels of his mill, or out into the orchard. Of
Sam nothing had been heard. He was away, it was believed in Durham,
working at some colliery engine. He gave no sign of himself to his
mother or sister; but it was understood that he would appear at
the assizes, towards the end of the present month, as he had been
summoned there as a witness at the trial of the two men for the
murder of Mr. Trumbull.

And Carry, also, was to be a witness at the assizes; and, as it was
believed, a witness much more material than her brother. Indeed, it
was beginning to be thought that after all Sam would have no evidence
to give. If, indeed, he had had nothing to do with the murder, it was
not probable that any of the circumstances of the murder would have
been confided to him. He had, it seemed, been on intimate terms with
the man Acorn,--and, through Acorn, had known Burrows and the old
woman who lived at Pycroft Common, the mother of Burrows. He had been
in their company when they first visited Bullhampton, and had, as we
know, invited them into the Vicar's garden,--much to the damage of
Mr. Bur