e stuck
in my memory, and now, as I walked down the platform towards the
single figure on the bench, I wondered, amusedly, if the woman had at
length taken the ride alone, and if the procrastinating husband sat
here to welcome her back.

As I drew near, I took note of his clothes for the first time.
There was no white dust in the creases to-day. In fact, he wore the
workhouse suit.

I sat down beside him, and asked if he remembered a certain small boy
who had used to draw dace out of his mill-pond. With some difficulty
he recalled my features, and by decrees let out the story of his life
during the last ten years.

He and his wife had fought along in their new house, hiding their
discomfort from each other, and abiding the slow degrees by which
their dwelling should change into a home. But before that change was
worked, the woman fell under a paralytic stroke, and their savings, on
which they had just contrived to live, threatened to be swallowed up
by the doctor's bill. After considering long, the miller wrote off to
his only son, a mechanic in the Plymouth Dockyard, and explained the
case. This son was a man of forty or thereabouts, was married, and had
a long family. He could not afford to take the invalid into his house
for nothing; but his daughters would look after their grandmother and
she should have good medical care as well, if she came on a small
allowance.

"So the only thing to be done, sir, was for my old woman to go."

"And you--?"

"Oh, I went into the 'House.' You see, there wasn' enough for both,
livin' apart."

I stared down the line to the spot where the mill-wheel had hummed
so pleasantly, and the compassionate sentence I was about to utter
withered up and died on my lips.

"But to-day--Oh, to-day, sir--"

"What's happening to-day?"

"She's comin' down to see me for an hour or two; an' I've got a
holiday to meet her. 'Tis our Golden Weddin', sir."

"But why are you meeting her at this station instead of Tregarrick?
She can't walk, and you have no horse and trap; whereas there's always
a 'bus at Tregarrick."

"Well, you see, sir, there's a very tidy little cottage below where
they sell ginger-beer, an' I've got a whack o' vittles in the basket
here, besides what William is bringin'--William an' his wife are
comin' down with her. They'll take her back by the last train up; an'
I thought, as 'twas so little a while, an' the benches here are so
comfortable, we'd pass our day 'pon the p