een the saint he worshipped, or, perhaps,
the woman whom afterwards he would learn to adore. Then he went away.

"Truly," said the mother, in an amused aside to me, as with a kind of
motherly pride she watched him walk hastily down between those
chestnut-trees, known of old--"truly, time flies fast. Things begin to
look serious--eh, father? Five years hence we shall have that young
man falling in love with Muriel."

But John and I looked at the still, soft face, half a child's and half
an angel's.

"Hush!" he said, as if Ursula's fancy were profanity; then eagerly
snatched it up and laughed, confessing how angry he should be if
anybody dared to "fall in love" with Muriel.

Next day was the one fixed for the trial of the new steam-engine; which
trial being successful, we were to start at once in a post-chaise for
Longfield; for the mother longed to be at home, and so did we all.

There was rather a dolorous good-bye, and much lamenting from good Mrs.
Tod, who, her own bairns grown up, thought there were no children
worthy to compare with our children. And truly, as the three boys
scampered down the road--their few regrets soon over, eager for
anything new--three finer lads could not be seen in the whole country.

Mrs. Halifax looked after them proudly--mother-like, she gloried in her
sons; while John, walking slowly, and assuring Mrs. Tod over and over
again that we should all come back next summer, went down the steep
hill, carrying, hidden under many wraps and nestled close to his warm
shoulder, his little frail winter-rose--his only daughter.

In front of the mill we found a considerable crowd; for the time being
ripe, Mr. Halifax had made public the fact that he meant to work his
looms by steam, the only way in which he could carry on the mill at
all. The announcement had been received with great surprise and
remarkable quietness, both by his own work-people and all along
Enderley valley. Still there was the usual amount of contemptuous
scepticism, incident on any new experiment. Men were peering about the
locked door of the engine-room with a surly curiosity; and one village
oracle, to prove how impossible it was that such a thing as steam could
work anything, had taken the trouble to light a fire in the yard and
set thereon his wife's best tea-kettle, which, as she snatched angrily
away, scalded him slightly, and caused him to limp away swearing, a
painful illustration of the adage, that "a little kno