ation
until too late. Then the miller heard of his loss, and, not unnaturally,
took the business ill.

"Gormed if it ban't open robbery!" declared Mr. Blee, as he sat and
discussed the matter with his master one evening, "an' the thankless,
ill-convenient twoad to go to Blanchard, of all men!"

"He'll be out of work again soon enough. And he needn't come back to me
when he is. I won't take him on no more."

"'Twould be contrary to human nature if you did."

"Human nature!" snapped the miller, with extreme irritation. "'Twould
puzzle Solomon to say what's come over human nature of late days."

"'Tis a nut wi' a maggot in it," mused Billy: "three parts rotten, the
rest sweet. An' all owing to fantastic inventions an' new ways of
believin' in God wi'out church-gwaine, as parson said Sunday. Such
things do certainly Play hell with human nature, in a manner o'
speakin'. I reckon the uprising men an' women's wickeder than us, as
sucked our mothers in quieter times afore the railroads."

"Bonus is such a fule!" said Mr. Lyddon, harking back to his loss. "Yet
I thought he belonged to the gude old-fashioned sort."

"I told un he was out in his reckoning, that he'd be left in the cold
bimebye, so sure as Blanchard was Blanchard and Newtake was Newtake; but
he awnly girned his gert, ear-wide girn, an' said he knawed better."

"To think of more gude money bein' buried up theer! You've heard my view
of all ground wi' granite under it. Such a deal ought to have been done
wi' that thousand pound."

"Oughts are noughts, onless they've strokes to 'em," declared Billy.
"'Tis a poor lookout, for he'm the sort as buys experience in the
hardest market. Then, when it's got, he'll be a pauper man, with what he
knaws useless for want o' what's spent gettin' it. Theer's the thought
o' Miss Phoebe, tu,--Mrs. Blanchard, I should say. Caan't see her biding
up to Newtake nohow, come the hard weather."

"'Wedlock an' winter tames maids an' beastes,'" said Mr. Lyddon
bitterly. "A true saw that."

"Ess; an' when 'tis wedlock wi' Blanchard, an' winter on Dartymoor,
'twould tame the daughter of the Dowl, if he had wan."

Billy laughed at this thought. His back rounded as he sat in his chair,
his head seemed to rise off his lower jaw, and the yellow frill of hair
under his chin stood stiffly out.

"He's my son-in-law; you 'pear to forget that, Blee," said Mr. Lyddon;
"I'm sure I wish I could, if 'twas even now an' again."

Thereupon Bill