"Now, please don't begin talking like mother," Helen said, frigidly. "I've certainly got less to take care of now than I had. Mother quite saw that. But what difficulty I had in getting her off, even after I'd safely married her! I had to promise that if I felt lonely I'd go and join them. But I shan't." "You won't?" "No. I don't see myself on a farm in Manitoba. Do you?" "I don't know as I do," said James, examining her appearance, with a constant increase of his pride in it. "So ye saw 'em off at Glasgow. I reckon she made a great fuss?" "Fuss?" "Cried." "Oh yes, of course." "Did you cry, miss?" "Of course I cried," said Helen, passionately, sitting up straight. "Why do you ask such questions?" "And us'll never see Susan again?" "Of course I shall go over and _see_ them," said Helen. "I only meant that I shouldn't go to stop. I daresay I shall go next year, in the holidays." CHAPTER IV INVITATION TO TEA They were most foolishly happy as they sat there on the bench, this man whose dim eyes ought to have been waiting placidly for the ship of death to appear above the horizon, and this young girl who imagined that she knew all about life and the world. When I say that they were foolishly happy, I of course mean that they were most wisely happy. Each of them, being gifted with common sense, and with a certain imperviousness to sentimentality which invariably accompanies common sense, they did not mar the present by regretting the tragic stupidity of a long estrangement; they did not mourn over wasted years that could not be recalled. It must be admitted, in favour of the Five Towns, that when its inhabitants spill milk they do not usually sit down on the pavement and adulterate the milk with their tears. They pass on. Such passing on is termed callous and cold-hearted in the rest of England, which loves to sit down on pavements and weep into irretrievable milk. Nor did Helen and her great-stepuncle mar the present by worrying about the future; it never occurred to them to be disturbed by the possibility that milk not already spilt might yet be spilt.