Although Mr. Otley had no longer any commissions to perform at Turnholme for Susan, her worsted-work having given place to her former occupation of needle-work, still he found many an excuse for calling. Sometimes he would send the old man a rabbit for his supper; sometimes a cheese, the handy-work of Dame Thompson. At another time, he gave Susan a hive of young bees which had just swarmed, as the dame had said she was fond of honey. By degrees he greatly won upon the esteem of Susan by his attentions to her parents. He was in a situation comparatively so much superior to theirs, that he had the opportunity of appearing to them almost in the light of a benefactor. Some time, however, elapsed before he ventured to express his feelings in any mode but by kindness to her parents. The sorrows she had known, the trials she had gone through, and the composed resignation to which she had trained her mind during her affliction, had left a sedate self-possession in her cheerfulness. He was aware of her previous attachment, and he did not feel sure whether an offer of marriage would be received, in the manner probable, from the relative situation of the parties. At length his little presents became more pointedly addressed to her. His basket of ripest gooseberries was given to her. He would invite her to take a walk to look at his garden and gather herself a nosegay. He sometimes lamented to her that his children were not sufficiently attended to. "He did not wish to bring them up to over-gentility, but he wished them to have a good plain education. He should like his girl to be as good a scholar as Susan was; that would do for him: plain useful learning, plain useful good sense, and plain useful work. He wished Susan would step up and see how little Lizzy went on." But this Susan did not like to do. The neighbours already began to talk, and the old dame already began to hope her girl was likely to be well settled in life; "and then," as she said to Nicholas one evening, when Susan was gone out to carry home some work,--"and then, Nicholas, it does not signify how soon it pleases the Lord to take us: then I may pray, as I used to do, that I may never see another sun rise when once it has pleased God to call you to himself."