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 flower--with other happy beauties of early summer. The effort looked raw and unhappy, however, and as ill luck would have it, these various plants did not take kindly to their changed life, and greeted Phoebe with hanging heads.