Matters had been in this condition for a month or two, when Jacob Ogden, whose visits to his beloved one had been made rare by the exigencies of business, became somewhat importunate about the fixing of his wedding-day. It was not that he looked forward thereto with feelings of very eager or earnest anticipation, but he had a business-like preference for "fixtures" and dates over the vague promises of an indefinite _avenir_. Miss Anison, on the contrary, seemed to have a rooted objection to such rigid limitations of liberty; and, like a man in debt whose creditor proposes to draw upon him for an inexorable thirtieth of next month, felt that the vague intention of paying some time was for the present less hard and harassing to the mind. And as the debtor procrastinates, so did Margaret Anison procrastinate. Her heart was not in this marriage, but her interest was; and, so far as she avowed to herself any purpose at all, her purpose was to gain time, and keep Jacob Ogden as a resource, when all chance of Philip Stanburne should be lost finally and for ever. Miss Anison, in a matter of this kind, was a great deal cleverer than Jacob Ogden, who, though not easily taken in by a man in men's business, had little experience of womankind, and none whatever of polite young ladies and their ways. Margaret Anison had found a capital excuse for delay in the necessity for building a new house, and she set Jacob Ogden to work thereupon with an energy at least equal to that which he lavished on the new mill. He wanted very much to have the house close to the factory, but the young lady preferred the tranquillity of the country, and went to Milend expressly to select a site. She chose a little dell that opened into the Shayton valley; and though of all views in the world the pleasantest for Mr. Ogden would have been a view of his own mills, he was denied this satisfaction, and his windows looked out upon nothing but green fields. "If they'd nobbut been my own fields," Jacob thought, "I wouldn't so much have cared. Not but what a good mill is a prettier sight than the greenest field in Lancashire, but it's no plezur to me to look out upon other folks' property." And the worst of it was, that there was no chance of ever purchasing the said property, for it belonged to an ancient Lancashire family, which had a wise hereditary objection to parting with a single acre of land.