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shouted downstairs for the girl to make breakfast; and Charlotte changed her nightshift for a pale blue morning gown, and pinned up her fair hair in a jaunty knot.
    It was one of the strangest meals William had ever eaten. The slattern who waited upon them fetched out an old heel of cheese from a side-cupboard, and a misshapen loaf from the basement kitchen. Charlotte discovered the butter in a dish beneath the sofa, and picked out the best of the crockery on the landing. Now the initial delight and surprise were fading she was embarrassed, and kept stealing little looks at William to see what he thought of her ménage. But he tactfully busied himself getting the parlour fire to draw, which it did at last though the chimney clearly needed sweeping. Alone, they sat down at the round table, and Charlotte poured his tea and drank hers, and for a while they were silent. An expression on her face told him that she was about to voice an unpleasant truth. He hoped it did not concern his uninvited presence, for he was now so tired that he could have lain down on the scuffed carpet and slept like a dog. Charlotte began directly.
    ‘You see why I cannot ask Mamma to stay, do you not?’ she asked.
    ‘I can see,’ replied William, unable to soften the statement without lying, ‘that it would be difficult on all sides.’
    ‘Did Mamma send you?’
    Revived momentarily by the tea, he said, ‘No, Lottie. I came upon some business, but I can tell you of that another time. It is not important, except to me of course.’
    She observed him closely, but he ate his second breakfast unmoved.
    Suddenly she cried tearfully, ‘I am very much afraid I shall die. And I need her. But she and my father were harsh to Toby, and ordered him away from Millbridge when they saw him. And they mislike him.’
    ‘They misliked the secrecy, and the elopement,’ said William gently.
    ‘But it was the only way,’ said Charlotte, despairing and yet defiant, ‘they would never have consented to our marriage else.’
    She had always been indifferent even to the dearest opinion, once her mind was made up.
    Again there was silence between them.
    ‘Great-aunt Tib, and Aunt Phoebe, and Agnes and Sally all send their love and many gifts for yourself and the infant,’ said William cheerfully.
    Her expression changed from determination to the utmost tenderness.
    ‘Oh, how is Aunt Tib? Does she still scold Aunt Phoebe? And Agnes, how is her rheumatism? And is Sally courting yet? Oh, and have the Misses Whitehead filled my teaching post at the Academy in Millbridge?’
    ‘The ladies of Thornton House pursue their course in life unchanged, save for your presence, Lottie, which lightened them considerably. I believe the Academy for Young Ladies will contrive to manage without another teacher. One feels your learning was too much for the Misses Whitehead! They would rather their female charges tatted and tattled than studied ancient languages!’
    Charlotte laughed, and struck her hands together with pleasure, as she used to do in their childhood.
    ‘How long you were away, Willie,’ she said, and then sighed and looked pensively at a hole in the tablecloth.
    He failed to conceal a tremendous yawn, and she suddenly saw how weary he was of travelling and emotion.
    ‘Come,’ she said affectionately, ‘there is a bed in the other room upstairs, though the room is not yet furnished. You shall sleep until dinner. Why, you are quite wore out!’
    He woke to find the winter afternoon well advanced. The room was dimly lit, due to an old coverlet being hung across the window for a curtain, and bitterly cold. But Charlotte had come softly in while he was asleep, and endeavoured to make it more comfortable for him. Delectably, up the well of the staircase, overcoming the smells of mice and mould, drifted the odours of cooking. He could hear Toby’s voice in the parlour, Charlotte’s answering laugh, the scolding of the slut in the scullery, and a hollow mewing outside