A wilful woman is proverbially supposed to have her way, yet it sometimes happens that, even when she proposes, Heaven disposes events otherwise than she would have had them. Thus, though Martha Jesty had made arrangements for her father to depart this life in the winter--a time when business should be conveniently slack--that worthy old gentleman was removed from this earthly sphere in the very height of summer, when the harvest was in full swing, and more than an ordinary number of tourists halted daily for refreshment at the Pure Drop. Tidings of this melancholy event were imparted to William by a group who entered his yard on the morning of the occurrence, each eager to be the first to tell the news. That old Mr. Jesty was gone was an incontrovertible fact, but none of the newsmongers could agree as to the precise ailment which had carried him off. He had had a bit of a cold for a day or two, but while some said it had turned to “browntitus,” others were sure it was “poomonia,” and one shrill-voiced old lady delivered it as her opinion that nothing short of an “apple-complex” could have carried him off that sudden. Beyond sundry “ohs” and “ahs” and grunts indicative of surprise and sympathy, William made no remark, though when one facetious bystander observed that it would be his turn next--a somewhat obscure phrase, which might be interpreted in a variety of ways--he grinned appreciatively. No sooner had the gossips departed, however, than he went indoors and assumed his coat, and immediately betook himself, not to the Pure Drop, but to the Rectory. “The Reverend,” as his parishioners frequently called him, was sitting in his study, tranquilly reading his _Times_, when William Faithfull was ushered in. “You’ll have heard the noos, sir,” he began abruptly; “old Abel Jesty up to the Pure Drop, he’s gone at last.” “Oh!” said the Rector, looking rather startled; “that’s sudden, isn’t it?” “’E-es,” said William, with a wooden face; “sudden but not unpre-pared. Martha has been a-lookin’ for en to go this ten year.” “Oh!” said the Rector again, this time a little uncertainly. “’E-es,” resumed William; “I thought I’d call an’ tell ye, so as ye need lose no time in settling things.” “About the funeral, I suppose you mean?” put in the clergyman as he paused. “No,” said William, who was gazing not only over the Rector’s head, but apparently through the wall at some distant sky-line; “about the weddin’--mine an’ Martha’s. Ye mid call us over on Sunday.” “Really, William, I think that is too sudden,” said the Rector; “why, the poor old man won’t have been dead a week!” “He be so dead as ever he’ll be,” returned William, still gazing impenetrably at that far point in an imaginary horizon. “Martha an’ I have a-made it up years ago, an’ settled as she’d not keep me waitin’ no longer after her father was took. I’ll thank ye to call us home, sir.”