A triumphant look lit up his face when, a little later in the afternoon, he sent into the vale to the dairy, and invited Margery and her father to his house to supper. She was not unsociable that day, and, her father expressing a hard and fast acceptance of the invitation, she perforce agreed to go with him. Meanwhile at home, Jim made himself as mysteriously busy as before in those rooms of his, and when his partner returned he too was asked to join in the supper. At dusk Hayward went to the door, where he stood till he heard the voices of his guests from the direction of the low grounds, now covered with their frequent fleece of fog. The voices grew more distinct, and then on the white surface of the fog there appeared two trunkless heads, from which bodies and a horse and cart gradually extended as the approaching pair rose towards the house. When they had entered Jim pressed Margery’s hand and conducted her up to his rooms, her father waiting below to say a few words to the senior lime-burner. ‘Bless me,’ said Jim to her, on entering the sitting-room; ‘I quite forgot to get a light beforehand; but I’ll have one in a jiffy.’ Margery stood in the middle of the dark room, while Jim struck a match; and then the young girl’s eyes were conscious of a burst of light, and the rise into being of a pair of handsome silver candlesticks containing two candles that Jim was in the act of lighting. ‘Why—where—you have candlesticks like that?’ said Margery. Her eyes flew round the room as the growing candle-flames showed other articles. ‘Pictures too—and lovely china—why I knew nothing of this, I declare.’ ‘Yes—a few things that came to me by accident,’ said Jim in quiet tones. ‘And a great gold clock under a glass, and a cupid swinging for a pendulum; and O what a lovely work-table—woods of every colour—and a work-box to match. May I look inside that work-box, Jim?—whose is it?’ ‘O yes; look at it, of course. It is a poor enough thing, but ’tis mine; and it will belong to the woman I marry, whoever she may be, as well as all the other things here.’ ‘And the curtains and the looking-glasses: why I declare I can see myself in a hundred places.’ ‘That tea-set,’ said Jim, placidly pointing to a gorgeous china service and a large silver tea-pot on the side table, ‘I don’t use at present, being a bachelor-man; but, says I to myself, “whoever I marry will want some such things for giving her parties; or I can sell em”—but I haven’t took steps for’t yet—’ ‘Sell ’em—no, I should think not,’ said Margery with earnest reproach. ‘Why, I hope you wouldn’t be so foolish! Why, this is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of when I told you of the things women could want—of course not meaning myself particularly. I had no idea that you had such valuable—’ Margery was unable to speak coherently, so much was she amazed at the wealth of Jim’s possessions.