"She'll have a deal to say," murmured Albert. "She's an awful temper, has Jecholiah, if things doesn't suit her, and----" "Now then, you listen to me," interrupted Grice. "We'll give her no chance o' sayin'--leastways, not to you, and what she says to me's neither here nor there. Now it's high time you were wed, mi lad, but you mun get t'right sort o' lass. And I'll tell you what--you know 'at I went last year to see mi brother John, 'at lives i' Nottingham--keep's a draper's shop there, does John, and he's a warm man an' all, as warm as what I am, and that's sayin' a bit! Now John has three rare fine lasses--your cousins, mi lad, though you've never seen 'em--and he'll give a nice bit wi' each o' 'em when they wed. I'll tell you what you shall do, mi lad--you shall take a fortnight's holiday, and go over there and see 'em; I'll write a letter to John to-night 'at you can take wi' you. And if you can't pick a wife o' t'three--why, it'll be a pity!--a good-lookin' young feller like you, wi' money behind you. Get your best things packed up to-night, and you shall drive into Sicaster first thing i' t'mornin' and be off to Nottingham. I'll see 'at you have plenty o' spendin' brass wi' you, and you can go and have your fling and make your choice. I tell yer there's three on 'em--fine, good-looking, healthy lasses--choose which you like, and me and her father'll settle all t'rest. And Nottingham's a fine place for a bit of holidayin'." Old Grice sat up two hours later than usual that night, writing to his brother, the Nottingham draper, and Albert went away before seven o'clock next morning with all his best clothes and with fifty pounds in his pocket. His father told him to do it like a gentleman, and Albert departed in the best of spirits. After all, he had no tender memories of Jeckie, and he remembered that once, when he had taken her to Cornchester Fair, and wanted to have lunch at the "Angel," she had chided him quite sharply for his extravagance and had made him satisfy his appetite on buns and cocoa at a cheap coffee-shop. It was a small thing, but he had smarted under it, for like all weak folk he had a vein of mulish contrariness in him, and it vexed him to know that Jeckie, when she was about, was stronger than he was.