Mockery, not slander, was his weapon. As Miss Newton idled over her embroidery he would lounge near her and make little jests about Hayes's age, size, and manners. She listened with a troubled face. Of course Mr. Rothwell was talking very cleverly, and she tried not to remember that she had found Mr. Hayes very kind and pleasant when he called the day before. Of course it was absurd that a man of that age should want to be taken for five-and-twenty--yes, and he had a _very_ ridiculous way of putting his head on one side like a bird--when Mr. Rothwell had insisted on having her opinion, she had said, "Yes, it was _very_ ridiculous"--and a gentleman, a real gentleman, would not talk so much about his money, and what he could do with it--Mr. Rothwell said so, and he certainly knew. And as she had agreed to it she supposed it was quite right that he should repeat this at dinner-time, as if it were her own remark, though she wished he wouldn't, because his father turned sharply and looked at her. But, no doubt, Mr. Hayes did look absurdly small by the side of John Rothwell, and there was something common in his manners. Many people might think they were all very well, but a lady would feel that there was something wanting. And so on, and so on, till she began to ask herself what John Rothwell would say of her if, after all this, she showed more than the coldest civility to Mr. Hayes. Kate perfectly understood the position of affairs, but did not choose openly to oppose her brother. If Hayes would have come and carried Minnie off, young Lochinvar fashion, she would have been secretly pleased. As it was, she was contemptuously kind to the girl, and if the little suitor met the two young women in the village, Miss Rothwell shook hands and looked away. Once she found herself some business to do at the Mitchelhurst shop, and sent Minnie home, lest she should be out too long in the December cold. She had spied Herbert Hayes coming along the street, and had rightly guessed that he would see and pursue the slim, black-clothed figure. And, indeed, he used his walk with Miss Newton to such good purpose that he might have won her promise then and there if a tall young man had not suddenly sprung over a stile and confronted them. Minnie fairly cowered in embarrassment as she met Rothwell's meaning glance, which assumed that she would be delighted to be rid of a bore, and she suffered him to give her his arm and to take her home, leaving poor Hayes to feel very small indeed as he stood in the middle of the road. He tried a letter, but it only called forth a little feebly-penned word of refusal as faint as an echo. Hayes never suspected the young man's deliberate malice. He fancied the old squire, if anybody, was his enemy; but he was more inclined to set the difficulty down to the Rothwells' notorious pride than to any special ill-will to himself.