“Well, I shan’t be altogether that lonely. Sabina--she be a-comin’ to keep I company till ye come back.” “Never!” cried Mrs. Faithfull, thrusting a scared face out of the window. “You don’t mean to say ye took on yerself to ax her to stop in my house?” The whistle sounded at this juncture, but William walked beside the train as it slowly moved off. “I didn’t ax her. ’Twas she herself as did say, when she heerd you were a-goin’ for to leave I all by mysel’, says she, ‘I’ll tell ’ee what, Will’um; I’ll take a holiday, too, an’----’” A loud and prolonged shriek from the engine drowned the remainder of the sentence, and the train steamed away, the last sign of the new-made bride being the agitating waving of a protesting hand from the carriage window. The carpenter was smoking a ruminative pipe, about four o’clock on that same afternoon, in the doorway of the snug little hostelry of which he now found himself master, when he was suddenly hailed by a distracted voice from the road. “William! for the Lard’s sake, William, do ’ee come and ketch hold of this here bag!” William removed his pipe, stared, and then wedging the stem firmly in the corner of his mouth, rushed down the path and up the roadway. “Bless me, Martha, be ye comed back again? Tired o’ London a’ready?” “No, my dear, I didn’t ever get so far as London,” cried Martha, thrusting the bag into his hand, and throwing herself in a heated and exhausted condition upon his neck. “I didn’t go no further than Templecombe. There, I’d no sooner started nor I did feel all to once that I couldn’t a-bear to leave ’ee. I fair busted out a-cryin’ in the train.” “Did ye?” said Faithfull, much gratified. “I did indeed,” resumed his wife. “‘Oh,’ says I, ‘how could I ever treat en so unfair,’ says I, ‘arter all them years as him an’ me was a-walkin’? Oh,’ says I, ‘when I think of his melancholy face, an’ this his weddin’ day an’ all.’ So I nips out at Templecombe, an’ gets another ticket, an’ pops into the train as were just startin’ Branston-way--an’ here I be.” “Well, an’ I be pure glad to see ye,” cried William heartily. They had by this time reached the house, and Mrs. Faithfull, still breathless with fatigue and agitation, stared anxiously about. “Where is she?” she inquired in a whisper. “Who?” said William, setting down the bag. “Why, your Cousin Sabina!” “Oh, her!” said William, with something like a twinkle in his usually lack-lustre eye; “she be gone home-along to fetch her things an’ lock up her house. She says she’ll come back to-morrow mornin’ first thing.”