Though young, Mehetabel seemed older than her years, so fully developed was her frame, so swelling her bosom, so set were her features. Usually the girl wore a high color, but of late this had faded out of her face, which had been left of an ashen hue. Her pallor, however, only gave greater effect to the lustre and profusion of her dark hair and to the size and to the velvet depth and softness of her hazel eyes. The girl had finely-moulded eyebrows, which, when she frowned through anger, or contracted them through care, met in one band, and gave a lowering expression to her massive brow. An urchin in the rear nudged a ploughboy, and said in a low tone, "Jim! The old harnet out o' the 'ollow tree be in luck to-day. Wot'll he do with her, now he's ketched a butterfly?" "Wot be he like to do?" retorted the bumpkin. "A proper spiteful twoad such as he--why, he'll rumple all the color and booty out o' her wings, and sting her till her blood runs pison." Then from the tower pealed the bells. Jonas pressed the arm of Mehetabel, and leering into her face, said: "Come, say a word o' thanks. Better late than never. At the last, through me, you've gotten a surname." CHAPTER XII. UNEXPECTED. The wedding party was assembled at the Ship, which for this day concerned itself not with outsiders, but provided only for such as were invited to sit and drink, free of charge, to the health and happiness of bride and bridegroom. The invitation had been extended to the kinsfolk of Jonas in the Punch-Bowl, as a matter of course; but none had accepted, one had his farm, another his business, and a third could not go unless his wife let him. Consequently the bridegroom was badly supported. He was not the man to make friends, and such acquaintances of his as appeared did so, not out of friendship, but in expectation of eating and drinking at the landlord's table. This angered Jonas, who, in church, on looking around, had noticed that his own family had failed to attend, but that they should fail also at the feast was what surprised him. "It don't matter a rush," scoffed he in Mehetabel's ear, "we can get along without 'em, and if they won't come to eat roast duck and green peas, there are others who will and say 'Thank'y.'" The announcement of Jonas's engagement had been indeed too bitter a morsel for his sister to swallow. She resented his matrimonial project as a personal wrong, as a robbery committed on the Rocliffes. Her husband was not in good circumstances; in fact, the family had become involved through a marriage, to which allusion has already been made; and had not thereafter been able to recover from it. She had felt the pressure of debt, and the struggle for existence. It had eaten into her flesh like a canker, and had turned her heart into wormwood. In her pinched circumstances, even the pittance paid by her brother for doing his cooking and washing had been a consideration. This now was to be withdrawn.