“Come to this?” laughed he. “Ay, and it’ll come to wus afore I’ve done if ye can’t make ’er mind my orders, marm. Ye may think it’s tall talk, miss,” he added, turning to his daughter again, “but as sure as this is the Sabbath Day and there’s a God above us, I’ll turn ye out sooner than see ye wed to Ben Chiswick’s son. I’ll turn ye out, be the disgrace what it may.” He brought his great fist down on the dresser with a thud that made the plates and dishes rattle on the rack, and turned upon his heel. At the door he faced her once more, with the latch in his hand. “Jim Preston ’ll be round somewheres about three o’clock,” said he. “Ye’d best look alive arter dinner and smarten yerself up.” After that first shrinking from his hand, Bess had not moved while he had been speaking. She had not even dropped her eyes. And now that he was gone, she just sat down again quietly, but with a sort of slowness that told of momentarily spent energy though not of waning courage. “Ye’ll give the young man a nice welcome, leastway, Bess,” begged the mother, half frightened without knowing it, of this silent daughter, whose moods and intentions were as a foreign tongue to her. “Even if ye did fancy young Chiswick a bit, ’e’s left the place, and out o’ sight ’s out o’ mind wi the men, they say. Very like ’e knowed it weren’t no go, for they do say th’ old man’s as set agin father as father’s agin ’im. I call it main reason’ble o’ the lad to take ’isself off: most girls fancy another lad afore the one they weds. I did myself—’andsomer than John ’e was—but, Lor’, what’s to be, ’ave got to be. And there’s no tellin’ ye mightn’t take to this Preston chap once ye got used to ’im. Anyways ye’ll speak the man civil. I don’t know whatever I shall do wi’ father if ye don’t.” “All right, mother,” said Bess quietly, “I’ll speak ’im civil.” The winter evening fell softly. Jim Preston had been and gone. He had proved to be “not much to look at;” indeed, a stout, plain young man, with a scanty wit, but Bess had been kinder to him than if he had been smart, for he had paid her no court, and for the matter of that had scarce spoken half-a-dozen words to her. And now he was gone, and for a while at least he would not come back, and she sat alone, trying to think what she should do. The garden stretched away on the right towards the common, but at its foot it ended in a sort of dry water-cress moat, beyond which were pastures where the cattle grazed in summer, but that were now deserted and barren, staring at the barren trees that flanked their two sides. Snow lay white over them and clung to the broad frost-bitten leaves of the winter cabbages in the garden; snow was sprinkled on the privet hedge, and the skeleton boughs of the beeches and maples that began the wood were set clear and black upon a brilliant frosty sunset. The sky was the softest thing to be seen; and all unconsciously Bess kept her eyes on the sky, and forgot the hard earth, and dreamed of love again.