y at all, it became necessary to provide him
with a bare competence for the credit of the family. He did his best to
win a little more regard and consideration, in the hope that when his
wife passed away the reward of devotion might be reaped; but she never
forgave him, expressed the conviction that she would outlive him by many
years, and exhausted her ingenuity to make the old man rue his bargain.
Only one experience, and that repeated as surely as Mr. Blee met Mr.
Lezzard, was more trying to the latter than all the accumulated
misfortune of his sorry state--Gaffer's own miseries appeared absolutely
trivial by comparison with Mr. Blee's comments upon them.

With another year Blanchard and Hicks became in some sort reconciled,
though the former friendship was never renewed. The winter proved a
severe one, and Will experienced a steady drain on his capital, but he
comforted himself in thoughts of the spring, watched his wheat dapple
the dark ground with green, and also foretold exceptional crops of hay
when summer should return. The great event of his wife's advent at
Newtake occupied most of his reflections; while as for Phoebe herself
the matter was never out of her mind. She lived for the day in June that
should see her by her husband's side; but Miller Lyddon showed no
knowledge of the significance of Phoebe's twenty-first birthday; and
when Will brought up the matter, upon an occasion of meeting with his
father-in-law, the miller deprecated any haste.

"Time enough--time enough," he said. "You doan't want no wife to Newtake
these years to come, while I _do_ want a darter to home."

So Phoebe, albeit the course of operations was fully planned, forbore to
tell her father anything, and suffered the day to drift nearer and
nearer without expressly indicating the event it was to witness.

CHAPTER XI

TOGETHER

Though not free from various temporal problems that daily demanded
solution, Will very readily allowed his mind a holiday from all affairs
of business during the fortnight that preceded his wife's arrival at
Newtake. What whitewash could do was done; a carpet, long since
purchased but not laid down till now, adorned the miniature parlour;
while out of doors, becoming suddenly conscious that not a blossom would
greet Phoebe's eyes, Will set about the manufacture of a flower-bed
under the kitchen window, bound the plat with neat red tiles, and
planted therein half a dozen larkspurs--Phoebe's favourite