“What!” he exclaimed, trying to see her face. “But there’s many a lass would like to be as well wed as this! What’s the matter, Cis?” “I don’t know ... ’tis the ring.... Do you love me a deal, Arthur?” “Kiss me.... Do I what?” “And would you get me another ring if I was to want it very much?” “Why, what ails this one?” “I don’t know.... Buy me another, Arthur. Buy me one of a right goldsmith, paid for wi’ earned money. ’Tis silly, but I shall do many silly things afore we’re old together.” Again he raised her chin. “Tut! I’ve left you too much alone, dear; but in another week or two---- Open your mouth....” She did so, adorably, and he put such a noisy kiss there as a mother gives to her babe. But she persisted. “Will you, love? ’Tis very little!” “You shall have all the rings you want by and by.” “Ah, I don’t want that, not that way.--Well, I’ll pay you for it now, with a kiss: then I shall have it, shan’t I?” “Rogue!” he answered, enfolding her. But within a couple of days she had another request to make of him, and that was that they might go to their own house in Horwick at the earliest moment. She gave as her reason for this that she might be helpful to Sally Northrop, and he frowned. “Sally’s managing well enough, and you can’t go alone. Are you unhappy here?” She answered looking away. “I’m happy where my husband is.” “Has anything upset you?” “No, no.” “Are you sure?” “Yes,” she replied; “but oh, I could like to see you in our little house, engraving your seals and plates again!” “That you shall see soon--the little house, at all events.” “Not to-morrow, Arthur, nor this week, for I’m going to cut the teazels; but very soon we’ll go, won’t we?” she pleaded. “So soon, Cis, that the time will seem like nothing. And now I must be off--they’ll be waiting. Say good-bye to your husband....” It seemed as if hot weather or hot pork, or both, had wrought deleteriously again on Eastwood Ellah. Whether these iggs of his were (as Monjoy had upbraided him) assumed or not made very little difference in the result; for you may reckon a man crazed who is crazy enough to desire to appear so. What Cicely had not told Arthur was of another of these attacks, in which, soothing his head with her hands, she had found herself suddenly laid hold of again; and she now went in fear of him, and barred the door of her chamber at night. Once, though she had not heard him ascend, she had seen, from the inside, the sneck of the door lift noiselessly of itself; and for hours, lying awake and clothed and trembling, she had listened to the furious racket of his loom in the adjoining chamber. About that time there befell a sequel to the parson’s wedding of which Pim o’ Cuddy, none other, was the hero. The renewal of lease (so to speak) that his second wedding had given to his connubial bliss lapsed, and again his wife left him. But this leaving was different.