"Hold thy noise, Tilly. Thou knowst nowt aboot it. Didn't I marry thee for loove, lass, when I might have had Sarah Peglock, as was only daughter to him as kept t' Red Lion in Belminster; and didn't I come up to London, where thou wast in service, and take thee away from thy pleace; and wasn't Sarah a'most wild when she heard it? Master Jarge 'll marry for loove, or he'll never marry at all. Don't you remember her as wore the pink sash and shoes wi' sandals at the dancin' school, Master Jarge; and us takin' her a ploom-loaf, and a valentine, and sugar-sticks, and oranges, when you was home for th' holidays?" Mr. Jeffson had been the confidant of all George's boyish love-affairs, the innocent Leporello of this young provincial Juan; and he was eager to be trusted with new secrets, and to have a finger once more in the sentimental pie. But nothing could be more stern than Mr. Gilbert's denial of any romantic fancy for Miss Sleaford. "I should be very glad to befriend her in any way," he said gravely; "but she's the very last person in the world that I should ever dream of making my wife." This young man discussed his matrimonial views with the calm grandiosity of manner with which man, the autocrat, talks of his humble slaves before he has tried his hand at governing them,--before he has received the fiery baptism of suffering, and learned by bitter experience that a perfect woman is not a creature to be found at every street-corner waiting meekly for her ruler. CHAPTER VI. TOO MUCH ALONE. Brown Molly's fetlocks were neatly trimmed by Mr. Jeffson's patient hands. I fancy the old mare would have gone long without a clipping, had it not been George's special pleasure that the animal should be smartened up before he rode her to Conventford. Clipping is not a very pleasant labour: but there is no task so difficult that William Jeffson would have shrunk from it, if its achievement could give George Gilbert happiness. Brown Molly looked a magnificent creature when George came home, after a hurried round of professional visits, and found her saddled and bridled, at eleven o'clock, on the bright March morning which he had chosen for his journey to Conventford. But though, the mare was ready, and had been ready for a quarter of an hour, there was some slight delay while George ran up to his room,--the room which he had slept in from his earliest boyhood (there were some of his toys, dusty and forgotten, amongst the portmanteaus and hat-boxes at the top of the painted deal wardrobe),--and was for some little time engaged in changing his neckcloth, brushing his hair and hat, and making other little improvements in his personal appearance.