'Yes, you can ride with me on Monday in the cart, and I will put you down at number six Dowry Square. Madam will give you ten pounds a year, and you will get a lot of books--I saw shelves full in the parlour--and you will see all the fine folks at the pump-room, and hear the band play. Won't you like that--eh, Bryda?' 'Oh, yes, of course I shall. I thank you, Jack, for taking all this trouble for me.' But the thanks were not so warm as Jack expected, and he could not understand what made Bryda seem so different from the eager, restless girl of the previous day, whose whole heart seemed then set on going to Bristol. The supper was silent, and old Mr Palmer could not be persuaded to taste the little meat pie made expressly for him. He pushed the plate away, saying,-- 'What business have I to be eating dainties like that, when I may not have a crust to gnaw before the year's out. Take it away, take it away--I don't want it.' Jack took leave as soon as supper was over, and made his way with a heavy heart to his own home. Then he found his mother in a very captious mood, upbraiding him for his long absence, and asking what he had been about all day. 'That's my concern, I suppose, in my holidays,' he replied. 'I shall be glad when your holidays are over, vastly glad. Your brother Jim is worth six of you after all. You don't know how to take advantage of the place in uncle's shop, which many would give their ears for.' 'Let Jim go to be a silversmith,' Jack said, 'and I'll come on the farm.' 'No. I know what's what, and the eldest shall have the first chance. For the sake of your widowed mother and six innocent little sisters you ought to be willing to do anything to raise you in the world.' 'Raise me! Pshaw! it's the other way,' Jack said. 'It's fine "raising," indeed, to be cooped up in a little workshop, peering into the works of old watches, with a glass in my eye and my back ready to break. However, I'm off again on Monday,' he said, altering his tone, for he remembered that if Bryda was in Dowry Square, within reach, even the little workshop and the pain in his back would be tolerable. Mrs Henderson was seated by the wide lattice window, with her feet on a stool, dressed much more smartly than the farmers' wives in the neighbourhood. She was sprigging fine muslin for a cap, and she wore large rings on the finger of her left hand, as well as her wedding ring on the other. The rings were of doubtful quality, like Falstaff's of old, but they were family heirlooms, and had been worn by her mother before her.