tatesmen, their wives, sons and
daughters. Parson Christian himself made the round of the homes of the
poor.

"'The poor ye have always with you,' but not everywhere, and not often
in Cana of Galilee," he said to Greta on setting out.

And the people of the highways and hedges were nothing loath to come in
to the feast. "God luck to the weddiners!" they said, "and may they
never lick a lean poddish-stick."

There was not much work done in the valley that day. The richest heiress
on the country-side was about to be married to the richest statesman in
the dale. On the eve of such an event it was labor enough to drop in at
the Flying Horse and discuss mathematics. The general problem was one in
simple addition, namely, how much Paul Ritson would be worth when he
married Greta Lowther. And more than once that day twice two made a
prodigious five.

The frost continued and the roads were crisp. Heavy rains had preceded
the frost, and the river that ran down the middle of the valley had
overflowed the meadows to the width of a wide carriage-way. This was now
a road of ice five miles long, smooth as glass, and all but as straight
as an arrow.

Abraham Strong, the carpenter, had been ordered to take the wheels off a
disused landau and fix instead two keels of wood beneath the axles. This
improvised sledge, after it had been shod in steel by the blacksmith,
was to play a part in to-morrow's ceremony.

Early in the day Brother Peter was dispatched to the town to fetch Mr.
Bonnithorne. The four miles' journey afoot seemed to him a bigger candle
than the entire game was worth.

"Don't know as I see what the lass wants mair nor she's got," he told
himself, grumpily, as he plodded along the road. "What call has she for
a man? Hasn't she two of 'em as she is? I made her comfortable enough
myself. But lasses are varra ficklesome."

Mr. Bonnithorne gathered enough from Brother Peter's "Don't know as
there's not a wedding in t' wind," to infer what was afoot. Hugh Ritson
was away from home, and his brother Paul was availing himself of his
absence to have the marriage ceremony performed.

This was the inference with which Mr. Bonnithorne had walked from the
town; but before reaching the vicarage he encountered Paul himself, who
was even then on the way to his office. Few words passed between them.
Indeed, the young dalesman was civil, and no more. He gave scant
courtesy, but then he also gave something that was more substantial,