ion. The romance was no more than philandering
of children in his eyes.

"Will--eh? Well, my son, and how can I serve you?" asked the master of
Monks Barton, kindly enough. He recrossed his legs, settled in his
leather chair, and continued the smoking of a long clay pipe.

"Just this, Mr. Lyddon," began Will abruptly. "You calls me your 'son'
as a manner o' speech, but I wants to be no less in fact."

"You ban't here on that fool's errand, bwoy, surely? I thought I'd made
my mind clear enough to Phoebe six months ago."

"Look you here now. I be earnin' eighteen shillings a week an' a bit
awver; an' I be sure of Morgan's berth as head-keeper presently; an' I'm
a man as thinks."

"That's brave talk, but what have 'e saved, lad?" inquired Mr. Blee.

The lover looked round at him sharply.

"I thought you was out the room," he said. "I be come to talk to Miller,
not you."

"Nay, nay, Billy can stay and see I'm not tu hard 'pon 'e," declared Mr.
Lyddon. "He axed a proper question. What's put by to goody in the
savings' bank, Will?"

"Well--five pounds; and 't will be rose to ten by Christmas, I assure
'e."

"Fi' puns! an' how far 's that gwaine?"

"So far as us can make it, in coourse."

"Doan't you see, sonny, this ban't a fair bargain? I'm not a hard man--"

"By gor! not hard enough by a powerful deal," said Billy.

"Not hard on youth; but this match, so to call it, looks like mere
moonshine. Theer 's nought _to_ it I can see--both childer, and neither
with as much sense as might sink a floatin' straw."

"We love each other wi' all our hearts and have done more 'n half a
year. Ban't that nothing?"

"I married when I was forty-two," remarked the miller, reflectively,
looking down at his fox-head slippers, the work of Phoebe's fingers.

"An' a purty marryin' time tu!" declared Mr. Blee. "Look at me," he
continued, "parlous near seventy, and a bacherlor-man yet."

"Not but Widow Comstock will have 'e if you ax her a bit oftener. Us all
knows that," said the young lover, with great stratagem.

Billy chuckled, and rubbed his wrinkles.

"Time enough, time enough," he answered, "but you--scarce out o'
clouts--why, 't is playin' at a holy thing, that's what 't is--same as
Miss Phoebe, when she was a li'l wee cheel, played at bein' parson in
her night-gownd, and got welted for it, tu, by her gude faither."

"We 'm both in earnest anyway--me and Phoebe."

"So am I," replied the miller, sitting up and puttin