her was snatched away? Why didn't
'E fill the cup of my sorrer to the brim at a filling an' not drop by
drop, to let un run awver now I be auld?"

Phoebe turned to him in bitter tears, but the man's head was down on his
hands beside his plate and cup, and he, too, wept, with a pitiful
childish squeak between his sobs. Weakness so overwhelming and so
unexpected--a father's sorrow manifested in this helpless feminine
fashion--tore the girl's very heartstrings. She knelt beside him and put
her arms about him; but he pushed her away and with some return of
self-control and sternness again bid her depart from him. This Phoebe
did, and there was silence, while Mr. Lyddon snuffled, steadied himself,
wiped his face with a cotton handkerchief, and felt feebly for a pair of
spectacles in his pocket. Mr. Chapple, meantime, had made bold to scan
the paper with round eyes, and Billy, now seeing the miller in some part
recovered, essayed to comfort him.

"Theer, theer, maister, doan't let this black come-along-o't quench 'e
quite. That's better! You such a man o' sense, tu! 'T was
awver-ordained by Providence, though a artful thing in a young gal; but
women be such itemy twoads best o' times--stage-players by sex, they
sez; an' when love for a man be hid in 'em, gormed if they caan't fox
the God as made 'em!"

"Her to do it! The unthankfulness, the cold cruelty of it! An' me that
was mother an' father both to her--that did rock her cradle with these
hands an' wash the li'l year-auld body of her. To forget all--all she
owed! It cuts me that deep!"

"Deep as a wire into cheese, I lay. An' well it may; but han't no new
thing; you stablish yourself with that. The ways o' women 's like--'t
was a sayin' of Solomon I caan't call home just this minute; but he
knawed, you mind, none better. He had his awn petticoat trouble, same as
any other Christian man given to women. What do 'e say, neighbour?"

Billy, of opinion that Mr. Chapple should assist him in this painful
duty, put the last question to his rotund friend, but the other, for
answer, rose and prepared to depart.

"I say," he answered, "that I'd best go up-along and stop they chaps
buildin' the triumphant arch. 'Pears won't be called for now. An'
theer's a tidy deal else to do likewise. Folks was comin' in from the
Moor half a score o' miles for this merry-makin'."

"'T is a practical thought," said Billy. "Them as come from far be like
to seem fules if nothin' 's done. You go