Here the more rigid of my readers may exclaim, "Surely he is not going to make little Jacob fall in love at _that_ age!" Well, not as you would fall in love, respected reader, if that good or evil fortune were to happen to you; but a child like little Jacob is perfectly capable of falling in love in his own way. The loves of children bear about the same proportion to the great passion which rules the destiny of men, that their contests in fisticuffs do to the bloody work of the bayonet; but as we may many of us remember having given Bob or Tom an ugly-looking black eye, or perchance remember having received one from Tom or Bob, so also there may linger amongst the recollections of our infancy some vision of a sweet little child-face that seemed to us brighter than any other face in the whole world. In this way did Edith Stanburne take possession of Master Jacob's honest little heart, and become the object of his silent, and tender, and timid, and exceedingly respectful adoration. He intensely felt the distance between himself and the heiress of Wenderholme Hall, and so he admired her as some young officer about a court may admire some beautiful princess whom it is his dangerous privilege to see. Children are affected by the externals of ancient wealth to a degree which the mature mind, dwelling amongst figures, is scarcely capable of realizing; and the difference between Wenderholme and Twistle Farm, or Wenderholme and Milend, seemed to little Jacob's imagination an utterly impassable abyss. But there was steam in Ogden's mill, and there was a leak in John Stanburne's purse, and the slow months and years were gradually bringing about great changes.