And then my manhood came back to me. I stood and put my arm round Miriam's waist, and looked Mr. Buckley squarely in the face. "Don't think, sir," I said, "that I have been silent because I wanted Miriam to go with you. I don't know how I should have faced life if she had been seduced by your offer, as well she might have been. But I should have counted it shame in me to hold her to her troth if she wanted to be free. I've nothing to set against your wealth but a true man's love and a poor man's home, and it seems Miriam thinks they weigh down the scale." Then Mrs. Buckley, wiping, if I was not greatly mistaken, a tear from either eye, said very gently: "Now, you young people, don't you think you are jumping before you've got to the stile? I think, Mr. Holmes, if you'll allow me an old woman's privilege, I think you show a very proper spirit, and just what I should have hoped and expected from you. Don't think either my husband or I deem you unfitted for Miriam's husband because you are poor and struggling. Why, bless you, when John Buckley first made eyes at me he was only a mill manager, and nigh as poor as you. And we'd a fight for it, at first, I can tell you; but they were the happiest days of our lives, weren't they, John?" And I declare the eyes that turned to the grey-headed old gentleman shone with such a light as a young maid turns upon the lover of her youth. "No, no," went on Mrs. Buckley, "there shall be no talk of parting two loving and faithful souls, not with my consent. All we ask is that you'll spare Miriam to us for a month or two occasionally. We won't spoil her, and we won't corrupt her, and you'll be free to see her just as often as you like, aye, even if you come in your clogs and smock. Why, man alive, nine out of every ten of the Lancashire manufacturers started in clogs and smock, and it's only the fools that are ashamed to own it. But you'll let us learn to know Miriam, won't you? Ah! if you only knew how my old heart yearns for a daughter's love." And then I did what Miriam afterwards told me made her proud of the lad of her choice. I strode across the room to where Mrs. Buckley sat, and I dropped on one knee and I raised her white, withered hands to my lips, and said softly: "Let it be as you wish, madam." And so it was settled, and that very day Miriam was whisked off in that great carriage to the lordly hall at Mossley, her last words as I gazed fondly in her eyes and pressed her hands in mine being a promise to write a long letter to Pole Moor within a few days.