Meanwhile, Tom Hulme had resumed his duties at Whaley-Bridge Mill, and Jabez returned home to his. Much to Augusta’s surprise, he was not only invited to dine with them on the day of his return, but to take his place henceforth at their board as one of the family. With Laurence’s misrepresentations fixed in her mind as truths, she construed the daily association thus thrust upon her as a deliberate affront, and resented it with a silent scorn which cut Jabez to the soul. He knew nothing of Aspinall’s letter, or that he was accused of a “ruffianly attack;” only felt that he would have died to serve her, and had done what he had to save her from life-long misery without a single thought of keeping her for himself. A few more days, and back to Manchester came Mr. Aspinall senior, having left a little of his portliness with his gout in the Buxton Baths. Back with him came his son, and his son’s congenial companion, Mr. Edmund Barret; the former still smarting under his defeat at Carr, and all the more resolutely determined to carry off Augusta, jealousy adding a new element to his love, a new aliment to his hate. Sitting idly by the parlour window on the third of October, with her head leaning against the frame, meditating on her own unhappiness and her parents’ harshness, Augusta suddenly started to her feet with a suppressed cry of delight, a vivid glow upon her cheeks, a brilliant sparkle in her eye. Laurence Aspinall, mounted on Black Ralph, his favourite hunter, was riding up the street, the dislocated ankle apparently not affecting his enjoyment of equestrian exercise. As he raised his new beaver in graceful salutation, even the flutter into which she was thrown could not prevent her missing his glorious curls. He had not deemed it necessary to replace his wig, and the poll shorn during fever had not yet grown a fresh crop ripe for harvest. The unfavourable impression passed with the moment, as he brought his obedient steed on the flagged pavement close under the window, and without a moment’s hesitation, she raised the sash, and leaned forward to speak with him, glad of the opportunity. “Oh, Laurence!” “My own Augusta, this is indeed fortunate!” Their hands clasped upon the window-sill,—the elevation of the house raising her to his level—her tearful eyes looked up in his for traces of suffering after the “ruffianly attack,” and found there, mingled with the fierce light of violent love, a bitter sense of defeat, a resolve to obtain her by fair means or foul. Each had the separate experience of that memorable September night to relate, coloured as passion or prejudice prevailed; but neither could fully enlighten the other as to the share Mr. Clegg had had in preventing the elopement.