law-suit between the
father of the said young-old fool and a farming cousin in California,
slowly settled like golden dust in the offices of lawyers in
Carey-street, London. And the house, grounds, lake, and furniture (save
certain portraits) were now on sale by order of the distant winner of
the law-suit. And both Mrs. Prockter and James could remember the time
when the twin-horsed equipage of the Wilbrahams used to dash about the
Five Towns like the chariot of the sun. The recollection made Mrs.
Prockter sad, but in James it produced no such feeling. To Mrs.
Prockter, Wilbraham Hall was the last of the stylish port-wine estates
that in old days dotted the heights around the Five Towns. To her it was
the symbol of the death of tone and the triumph of industrialism.
Whereas James merely saw it as so much building land upon which streets
of profitable and inexpensive semi-detached villas would one day rise at
the wand's touch of the man who had sufficient audacity for a prodigious
speculation.

"It 'ud be like living in th' covered market, living here," James
observed.

The St. Luke's Market is the largest roof in Bursley. And old
inhabitants, incapable of recovering from the surprise of marketing
under cover instead of in an open square, still, after thirty years,
refer to it as the covered market.

Mrs. Prockter smiled.

"By the way," said James, "where's them childer?"

The old people looked around. Emanuel and Helen, who had entered the
proud precincts with them, had vanished.

"I believe they're upstairs, ma'am," said the fat caretaker, pleating
her respectable white apron.

"You can go," said Mrs. Prockter, curtly, to this vestige of grandeur.
"I will see you before I leave."

The apron resented the dismissal, and perhaps would have taken it from
none but Mrs. Prockter. But Mrs. Prockter had a mien, and a flowered
silk, before which even an apron of the Wilbrahams must quail.

"I may tell you, Mr. Ollerenshaw," she remarked, confidentially, when
they were alone, "that I have not the slightest intention of buying this
place. Emanuel takes advantage of my good nature. You've no idea how
persistent he is. So all you have to do is to advise me firmly not to
buy it. That's why I've asked you to come up. He acknowledges that
you're an authority, and he'll be forced to accept your judgment."

"Why didn't ye say that afore, missis?" asked James bluntly.

"Before when?"

"Before that kick-up (party) o' your