A twinge of the ancient jealousy caught suddenly at Sarah’s heart. With difficulty she remembered May’s kindness and the long bond of the years. "I’ll not spend any lass’s savings on my lad!" she answered roughly, and then softened again. "Nay, May, my girl, you mean well enough, but it wain’t do. Losh save us! Hasn’t he done badly enough by you, as it is?" she added grimly. "You should ha’ been wed this many a long year, instead o’ hanging on for the likes o’ him!" "I doubt I’d never have married in any case," May said. "I don’t know as I’d ever have made up my mind to leave my dad." "You’d ha’ wed right enough but for Geordie,--dad or no dad!" Sarah scoffed. "You’re the sort as is meant to be wed, from the start. Nay, he’s spoilt your life, and no doubt about it, but there’s no sense in lossing the can because you’ve gone and spilt the milk. Say you sent him the brass, and he come back without a cent, what’d be the end o’ the business then? You’d wed him, I’ll be bound,--for pity, if for nowt else. Your father’ll likely leave you a nice bit, and you’d get along on that, but who’s to say how Geordie’d frame after all these years? Happen he’s lost the habit o’ work by now, and it’ll be a deal more likely than not if he’s taken to drink." "Geordie wasn’t that sort." May shook her head. "He’ll not have taken to drink, not he!" "Folks change out of all knowledge,--ay, and inside as well as out." "Not if they’re made right," May said stubbornly, "and Geordie was all right. He was a daft mafflin, I’ll give you that, always playing jokes and the like, but it was just the life in him,--nowt else. He was a fine lad then, in spite of it all, and I don’t mind swearing that he’s a fine man now." "Ay," Sarah said slowly, "fine enough, to be sure! A fine lad to leave his folks for t’far side o’ the world wi’ never a word! A fine man as can’t look to himself at forty, let alone give his father and mother a bit o’ help! ... Nay, my lass, don’t you talk to me!" she finished brusquely. "We’ve thought a deal o’ Geordie, me and Simon and you, but I reckon he’s nowt to crack on, all the same!" "You’d think different when he was back," May pleaded,--"I’m sure you would. And you needn’t fret about me if that’s all there is in the road. I made up my mind long since as I shouldn’t wed. But I’d be rarely glad, all the same, to have had a hand in fetching him home." "You’re real good, as I said, but it’s over late." She paused a moment and then went on again. "Letter went a couple o’ week ago." The tears came into May’s eyes. "You don’t mean as you said him no? Eh, Mrs. Thornthet, but I’m sorry to hear that!" "Yon sort o’ thing’s best answered right off." For a moment or two May put her hand to her face. "Eh, but what a pity!" she murmured, after a while. "What does it matter whose brass fetches him home?" "It matters to me." "It matters a deal more that you’re breaking your heart----"