NOW, though, as I have said, Miriam remained at Holly Grove as a guest of Mrs. Wrigley, I as not destined to see her any the oftener from her being so much the nearer. Mrs. Wrigley had not invited me to visit the great house during my sweetheart's stay, which I thought she might well have done, and I was far too proud to go there uninvited. I could not forget that though I was now a master myself--in a very small way to be sure, but still a master--I had till quite recently been Mr. Wrigley's man, and I still stood in some awe of him and his good lady. I am told that men who have been brought up as youths at our great public schools, such as Eton and Harrow, never quite get over the sense of trembling awe with which the headmaster impressed their young and plastic minds. They may become great generals, famous ministers of State, archbishops, aye, even prime ministers, in after life, yet to the end of their days their old headmaster is still their headmaster, a being little less august than Deity itself. Nay, in my own humble experience, I remember when I was a great, broad-shouldered man of forty years and more meeting at Huddersfield Market, for the first time for thirty years and more, one who used to bully and trounce me at the little village school we both attended. I had shot up into a big, strong man. To my great wonderment the bully of my youth was, in his prime of years, a little, peevish, spindle-shanked, weak-chested, pale-faced mannikin that I could have picked up and tossed over any stall without straining myself. And yet, at our first encounter at the market, when he made himself known to me, I felt a sudden sinking and sickening of my heart, such as I had often felt in the days so long gone by, when I had seen him striding across the playground towards me, wrath in his eye, majesty on his brow, a cricket-stump in his mighty hand with which to belabour poor, trembling me for some offence to his dignity as cock of the school. Aye, and would you believe it, at our first encounter at the market, the little fellow, though but a bummer, actually addressed me--me, a prosperous manufacturer, with good and coveted orders to place, in a patronising, condescending tone. But he soon altered his tune, I can tell you. All this to explain why, partly from pride and partly from cowardice, I kept away from Holly Grove during all the time of Miriam's sojourn there, though I will not deny that when night had fallen, and there were only the moon and stars to witness my folly, I would steal across the fields to the Upper Intak', and from a safe distance gaze wistfully at the chamber windows, and wonder in which room my goddess slept her sweet sleep and dreamed her pure dreams. One night I was blessed by seeing a shadow cross behind the window blind, and though the night was bitter cold I went hot as a stove all over me, my heart thumped in my breast, and my knees trembled under me. I learned afterwards that I had been staring at the window of Mrs.