He did not want to distress Bertha, but really half his lambs would die if he were not there to superintend their entrance into this wicked world. “But you must go,” said Bertha. “I’ve set my heart upon it.” He looked down for a while, rather unhappily. “Wouldn’t a month do?” he asked. “I’ll do anything you really want, Bertha.” But his obvious dislike to the suggestion cut Bertha’s heart. She was only inclined to be stubborn when she saw he might resist her; and his first word of surrender made her veer round penitently. “What a selfish beast I am!” she said. “I don’t want to make you miserable, Eddie. I thought it would please you to go abroad, and I’d planned it all so well.... But we won’t go; I hate Italy. Let’s just go up to town for a fortnight, like two country bumpkins.” “Oh, but you won’t like that.” “Of course I shall. I like everything you like. D’you think I care where we go so long as I’m with you?... You’re not angry with me, darling, are you?” Mr. Craddock was good enough to intimate that he was not. * * * * * Miss Ley, much against her will, had been driven by Miss Glover into working for some charitable institution, and was knitting babies’ socks (as the smallest garments she could make) when Bertha told her of the altered plan: she dropped a stitch! Miss Ley was too wise to say anything, but she wondered if the world were coming to an end; Bertha’s schemes were shattered like brittle glass, and she really seemed delighted. A month ago opposition would have made Bertha traverse seas and scale precipices rather than abandon an idea that she had got into her head. Verily, love is a prestidigitator who can change the lion into the lamb as easily as a handkerchief into a flower-pot! Miss Ley began to admire Edward Craddock. * * * * * He, on his way home after leaving Bertha, was met by the Vicar of Leanham. Mr. Glover was a tall man, angular, fair, thin and red-cheeked--a somewhat feminine edition of his sister, but smelling in the most remarkable fashion of antiseptics; Miss Ley vowed he peppered his clothes with iodoform, and bathed daily in carbolic acid. He was strenuous and charitable, hated a Dissenter, and was over forty. “Ah, Craddock, I wanted to see you.” “Not about the banns, Vicar, is it? We’re going to be married by special license.” Like many countrymen, Edward saw something funny in the clergy--one should not grudge it them, for it is the only jest in their lives--and he was given to treating the parson with more humour than he used in the other affairs of this world. The Vicar laughed; it is one of the best traits of the country clergy that they are willing to be amused with their parishioners’ jocosity. “The marriage is all settled then? You’re a very lucky young man.”