did. Her elder sister Letitia, who had a
prouder style of beauty, and a more worldly ambition, was engaged to a
wool-factor, who came all the way from Cattelton to see her; and
everybody knows that a wool-factor takes a very high rank, sometimes
driving a double-bodied gig. Letty's notions got higher every day, and
Penny never dared to speak of her cherished griefs to her lofty
sister--never dared to propose that they should call at Mr. Freely's to
buy liquorice, though she had prepared for such an incident by mentioning
a slight sore throat. So she had to pass the shop on the other side of
the market-place, and reflect, with a suppressed sigh, that behind those
pink and white jars somebody was thinking of her tenderly, unconscious of
the small space that divided her from him.

And it was quite true that, when business permitted, Mr. Freely thought a
great deal of Penny. He thought her prettiness comparable to the
loveliest things in confectionery; he judged her to be of submissive
temper--likely to wait upon him as well as if she had been a negress, and
to be silently terrified when his liver made him irritable; and he
considered the Palfrey family quite the best in the parish, possessing
marriageable daughters. On the whole, he thought her worthy to become
Mrs. Edward Freely, and all the more so, because it would probably
require some ingenuity to win her. Mr. Palfrey was capable of
horse-whipping a too rash pretender to his daughter's hand; and,
moreover, he had three tall sons: it was clear that a suitor would be at
a disadvantage with such a family, unless travel and natural acumen had
given him a countervailing power of contrivance. And the first idea that
occurred to him in the matter was, that Mr. Palfrey would object less if
he knew that the Freelys were a much higher family than his own. It had
been foolish modesty in him hitherto to conceal the fact that a branch of
the Freelys held a manor in Yorkshire, and to shut up the portrait of his
great uncle the admiral, instead of hanging it up where a family portrait
should be hung--over the mantelpiece in the parlour. Admiral Freely,
K.C.B., once placed in this conspicuous position, was seen to have had
one arm only, and one eye--in these points resembling the heroic
Nelson--while a certain pallid insignificance of feature confirmed the
relationship between himself and his grand-nephew.

Next, Mr. Freely was seized with an irrepressible ambition to posses