"Ah! Wait until you realise the outlets for money that a wife entails," nodded Mrs. Carradyne in her superior wisdom. "Not but that I'm sure it's good for young people, setting up together, to be straitened at the beginning. It teaches them economy and the value of money." Altogether it seemed a wonderful prospect to Robert Grame. Miss Lucy thought it would be Paradise. But a stern wave of opposition set in from Captain Monk. Hubert broke the news to him as they were sitting together after dinner. To begin with, the Captain, as a matter of course, flew into a passion. "Another of those beggarly parsons! What possessed them, that they should fix upon _his_ family to play off their machinations upon! Lucy Carradyne was his niece: she should never be grabbed up by one of them while he was alive to stop it." "Wait a minute, father," whispered Hubert. "You like Robert Grame; I know that: you would rather see him carry off Lucy than Eliza." "What the dickens do you mean by that?" Hubert said a few cautious words--hinting that, but for Lucy's being in the way, poor Katherine's escapade might have been enacted over again. Captain Monk relieved his mind by some strong language, sailor fashion; and for once in his life saw he must give in to necessity. So the wedding was fixed for the month of February, just one year after they had met: that sweet time of early spring, when spring comes in genially, when the birds would be singing, and the green buds peeping and the sunlight dancing. But the present year was not over yet. Lucy was sewing at her wedding things. Eliza Monk, smarting as from an adder's sting, ran away to visit a family who lived near Oddingly, an insignificant little place, lying, as everybody knows, on the other side of Worcester, famous only for its dullness and for the strange murders committed there in 1806--which have since passed into history. But she returned home for Christmas. Once more it was old-fashioned Christmas weather; Jack Frost freezing the snow and sporting his icicles. The hearty tenants, wending their way to the annual feast in the winter twilight, said how unusually sharp the air was, enough to bite off their ears and noses. The Reverend Robert Grame made one at the table for the first time, and said grace at the Captain's elbow. He had heard about the freedom obtaining at these dinners; but he knew he was utterly powerless to suppress it, and he hoped his presence might prove some little restraint, just as poor George West had hoped in the days gone by: not that it was as bad now as it used to be. A rumour had gone abroad that the chimes were to play again, but it died away unconfirmed, for Captain Monk kept his own counsel.