"My father, Tom, was a very strict, stern man" ("I'm not surprised to hear that," thought his listener) "and with an overweening sense of family pride. He was very proud that he was a Tinker, and, indeed, Tom, we are as old a family as there is in the valley. Never forget that. And we have an unsullied name. My father had another failing, if failing it be called. He was inordinately fond of money. He expected, he took it for granted, that both Dick and myself would marry not for money, of course, but where money was. "But both his sons disregarded their father's wishes. I, secretly, while he yet lived; Richard, as you know, after his death. It was my fate, at the house of a customer in Liverpool, to meet sweet Annie Lisle, the family governess. She was an orphan, alone and unfriended, in the world. What else she was, how sweet, how winsome, how patient, how true and how trustful I cannot bear to think of, still less speak. I won her love. I dared not speak of my passionate devotion at home. My father with the burden of age had become each year more exacting, less tolerant of opposition to his will. I feared to anger him. It was in his power to disinherit me by his will. I was absolutely dependent on him. The homestead was his, the mill, the business, were his. I was not man enough to face poverty, expulsion from my home, loss of social status--not even for my loved one's sake. Call me a poltroon, Tom, a coward, a cur, if you like. I have used bitterer words than those to myself. I knew it would be hopeless to ask my father's consent. He would have had one word--'Go!' Then I began, with a satisfaction I strove in vain to banish, to observe, nay, to gauge, the sign of my father's failing health. I persuaded myself he was not long for this world, and in my heart of hearts I was glad. But my passion ill brooked delay. I urged Annie to a secret wedding. Reluctantly she consented. She procured a week's holiday from her employer, and we were married by special license at the parish church of Seaford, on the south coast, a small fishing hamlet little frequented by the tourist or holiday-maker. It was a week of Paradise. Then my wife returned to her employment, I was to find a favourable opportunity of breaking the news to my father. Meantime anything might happen. I conjured my wife to keep our secret. I kept the certificate of our marriage, so afraid was I lest it should fall into another's hand. My wife was not even to write to me lest my father's suspicions should be aroused. I continued to call on my Liverpool customer as usual, and when he asked me as usual to dine or sup at his house, I treated my own wife with the distant courtesy one shows to a governess. One day, early in the winter of 1830, I called at the house of Mr.----, I was determined to take my wife away. My father had softened much during the past few months. He had agreed to pay me a fixed salary, instead of doling out a pound or two for pocket money. I