rm; and I wish you not to be
displeased with your visit. You must come quite often; once a week, if
you can spare the time; I am always so glad to see my friends."

"Oh, very well," thought Will to himself. "It appears I was right after
all." And he paid a very agreeable visit, walked home again in capital
spirits, and gave himself no further concern about the matter.

For nearly three years Will and Marjory continued on these terms, seeing
each other once or twice a week without any word of love between them;
and for all that time I believe Will was nearly as happy as a man can be.
He rather stinted himself the pleasure of seeing her; and he would often
walk half-way over to the parsonage, and then back again, as if to whet
his appetite. Indeed, there was one corner of the road, whence he could
see the church-spire wedged into a crevice of the valley between sloping
fir-woods, with a triangular snatch of plain by way of background, which
he greatly affected as a place to sit and moralise in before returning
homewards; and the peasants got so much into the habit of finding him
there in the twilight that they gave it the name of "Will o' the Mill's
Corner."

At the end of the three years Marjory played him a sad trick by suddenly
marrying somebody else. Will kept his countenance bravely, and merely
remarked that, for as little as he knew of women, he had acted very
prudently in not marrying her himself three years before. She plainly
knew very little of her own mind, and, in spite of a deceptive manner,
was as fickle and flighty as the rest of them. He had to congratulate
himself on an escape, he said, and would take a higher opinion of his own
wisdom in consequence. But at heart he was reasonably displeased, moped a
good deal for a month or two, and fell away in flesh, to the astonishment
of his serving-lads.

It was perhaps a year after this marriage that Will was awakened late
one night by the sound of a horse galloping on the road, followed by
precipitate knocking at the inn-door. He opened his window and saw a
farm-servant, mounted and holding a led horse by the bridle, who told him
to make what haste he could and go along with him; for Marjory was dying,
and had sent urgently to fetch him to her bedside. Will was no horseman,
and made so little speed upon the way that the poor young wife was very
near her end before he arrived. But they had some minutes' talk in
private, and he was present and wept very bitterly