"I beg your pardon, what did you say, Miss Dorothy?" "I said, what about Miss Baxter's apprentice?" and there was no mistaking the withdraw of the hand now. "Miss Baxter's apprentice!" said Tom, blankly. "Miss Baxter, the milliner, you mean." "Of course I mean her _and_ her apprentice." "Well, what about them?" asked Tom, "and how came we to be talking about them?" "What's her name? I hope it's a pretty one." "Why, Miss Baxter, to be sure." "Stupid! I mean her apprentice. The one that wears green gloves. She's one of the teachers in our Sunday school. Oh! You know very well, sir." "I suppose you mean Miss Pounder." "What a horrid name: but what could you expect from a girl that wears green gloves. You really must buy her a pair of another colour. But there's no great change from Pounder to Pinder. That will be one comfort for her. But I meant her Christian name." "Upon my word," said Tom, "I haven't an idea. It may be Jezebel for aught I know or care." "But I thought...." "Yes, you thought?" "Oh! nothing," said Dorothy, "and here, thank goodness, we're at the reservoir at last. Oh! isn't the view down the valley just lovely?" "It is," said Tom, but his eyes were on Dorothy's beaming face. They lingered for some moments on the embankment of the vast sheet of water, each wrapt in thought. It was Dorothy who spoke. "Wherever does all the water come from and how could they manage to trap it like this?" "Oh, this reservoir is almost made by Nature. Yonder is Hoobrook Hill and there is Lum Bank. It needed but to throw a bank across the intervening space, and behold, the reservoir was made. The water comes from Holme Moss and the hills running up to Saddleworth. You would scarce think that this huge dam contains nigh a hundred million gallons of water, and that there is a pressure of several hundred thousand ton weight on the bank on which we stand." "Oh! Tom! if it were to burst!" Pinder looked very grave. "I have often thought of that. It would be a calamity such as daunts the heart but to think of. I come here often of a moonlight night when I have made up my books for the day. It is sweet to be alone with God, and thoughts that come from God and turn to Him. But there seems some weird fascination that draws my steps hitherwards. Had I ever contemplated suicide...." Dorothy's hand sought his involuntarily "Never that Tom, never that." "I should have thought there was an unseen hand beckoning, me hither. This great expanse of water, so still, when the clouds brood over it, so sullen, so seeming peaceful confined, so terrible for infinite woe if it should I o'erleap its barrier, has cast its spell over me." "How gloomily you talk, Mr. Pinder!" "It was 'Tom' but a moment gone." "Well, Tom, then--as we are such old friends."