Tom did as he was bid, and as the stiff paper caught the flames, and the smell from the wax seals invaded the stuffy office he felt as though chains fell from his limbs and incense burned on the altar of freedom. "Well?" said Mr. Tinker at length. "I think I must go, sir. But I go thanking you from my heart," was Tom's reply. "So be it," said Mr. Tinker, curtly. "When you're done up dish and spoon don't come here for work, that's all." "I won't," said Tom, and went. And as he walked slowly homewards he resolved to keep his own counsel and say nothing to Ben or Hannah about the offer that had been made to him. It would disquiet Ben and lead to no good. Best say nothing about the matter; let it lie between him and Mr. Tinker. Besides if it got talked of in the village those who believed his statement would call him a fool, those who didn't a liar. It was all the easier to dismiss the subject from his mind when he found the following letter awaiting him: "Dear Tom, Seein it will be your berthday nex Sunday, an you will be twenty-one, me an Mister Redfearn have fixed it up to have a bit of a do here seein as it wer here you was borne. An Fairbanks has sent a goos an a turkey, an Moll has maid a puddin an you are to bring Mester an Missus Garsed wi my respecks to em an welcome, likewise their dowter too. Also to say as Fairbanks will send his trap bi Workus Jack for Missus an dowter an yo an Ben mun cum o Shanks mare. Dinner at nooin an no waitin. So no more at present hopeing this finds yo well as it leaves me. Yure affeckshinit, Betty Schofield" Go! Of course they would go; all of them. Where else could the auspicious day be better spent than in the very house he first saw the light, and among the friends of his infancy. Go! yes though the snow lay three feet deep on moor and fell, and the wintry wind howled round Pots and Pans and whirled the stinging atoms in a very blast hurricane and tornado of blinding blizzard. "Goa!" exclaimed Hannah, "aw'st goa if aw've to crawl o' mi han's an' knees. Yo' mun write a letter back, Tom, an' say we'st be theer at eleven i' th' forenooin if it's convenient to Mrs. Schofield, an' aw'll gi' a hand wi' th' bastin' an' sarvin' up, so's 'oo can cooil dahn afore 'oo sits dahn to th' table. Aw reckon aw'st want no cooilin' dahn long afore we're ovver th' top." And then Hannah and Lucy fell to at such a preparation, adjusting, re-adjusting, snipping, snipeing, cutting, hemming, tuckering of shawls and dresses, to such a trimming of hat and bonnet, and such a littering of the house with female finery, that if a wedding or a coronation had been afoot, matters could not have been worse.