gh her father's
kind heart ached at the necessary denial. Sharp words again had passed
between the farmer and the tanner concerning her, and the former
believed that his brother-in-law would even encourage the outlaw still.
And for Mary herself now the worst of it was that she had nothing to lay
hold of in the way of complaint or grievance. It was not like that first
estrangement, when her father showed how much he felt it in a hundred
ways, and went about everything upside down, and comforted her by his
want of comfort. Now it was ten times worse than that, for her father
took everything quite easily!

Shocking as it may be, this was true. Stephen Anerley had been through
a great many things since the violence of his love-time, and his views
upon such tender subjects were not so tender as they used to be. With
the eyes of wisdom he looked back, having had his own way in the matter,
upon such young sensations as very laudable, but curable. In his own
case he had cured them well, and, upon the whole, very happily, by a
good long course of married life; but having tried that remedy alone,
how could he say that there was no better? He remembered how his own
miseries had soon subsided, or gone into other grooves, after matrimony.
This showed that they were transient, but did not prove such a course
to be the only cure for them. Recovering from illness, has any man been
known to say that the doctor recovered him?

Mrs. Anerley's views upon the subject were much the same, though
modified, of course, by the force of her own experience. She might have
had a much richer man than Stephen; and when he was stingy, she reminded
him of that, which, after a little disturbance, generally terminated
in five guineas. And now she was clear that if Mary were not worried,
condoled with, or cried over, she would take her own time, and come
gradually round, and be satisfied with Harry Tanfield. Harry was a fine
young fellow, and worshipped the ground that Mary walked upon; and it
seemed a sort of equity that he should have her, as his father had
been disappointed of her mother. Every Sunday morning he trimmed his
whiskers, and put on a wonderful waistcoat; and now he did more, for he
bought a new hat, and came to church to look at her.

Oftentimes now, by all these doings, the spirit of the girl was roused,
and her courage made ready to fly out in words; but the calm look of the
elders stopped her, and then true pride came to her aid. If th