"G.o.d bless thee, my lad! Ay, He's brought me home safe. A bit footsore, to be sure, and glad enough of rest: but gladder to be suffered to do His will, and minister to His suffering servants. Whence come I? Well, from Kidderminster, to-day; but--"

"Dear heart! but you never footed it all the way from Kidderminster?"

"No, no, dear lad. A good man gave me a lift for a matter o' eight miles or more. But, dear me! I mind the time I could ha' run nigh on a mile in five minutes, and ha' trudged my forty mile a day, nor scarce felt it. I reckon, Tom, lad, thou'rt not so lissome as I was at thy years. Well, to be sure! 'Tis all right; I'm only a good way nearer Home."

They walked on together for a few minutes in silence. Tom's thoughts had gone back from the momentary pleasure of welcoming his uncle, to whom he was greatly attached, to his sore disappointment about Jenny.

"What is it, Tom?" said the old man quietly.

"Oh, only a bit of trouble, Uncle. Nought I need c.u.mber you with."

"Jenny Lavender?" was the next suggestion.

"Ay. I thought not you knew how I'd set my heart on her, ever since she was that high," said Tom, indicating a length of about a yard. "I've never thought o' none but her all my life. But she's that taken up with a sorry popinjay of a fellow, she'll not hear me now. I'd always thought Jenny'd be my wife."

Poor Tom's voice was very doleful, for his heart was sore.

"Thou'd alway thought so," said the quiet voice. "But what if the Lord thinks otherway, Tom?"

Tom came to a sudden stop.

"Uncle Anthony! Eh, but you don't--" and Tom's words went no further.

"My lad, thou'rt but a babe in Christ. 'Tisn't so many months since thou first set foot in the narrow way. Dost thou think He means Jenny Lavender for thee, and that thy feet should run faster in the way of His commandments for having her running alongside thee? Art thou well a.s.sured she wouldn't run the other way?"

Old Anthony had spoken the truth. Tom was but a very young Christian, of some six months' standing. He had never dreamed of any antagonism arising between his love to Christ and his love to Jenny Lavender.

Stay--had he not? What was that faint something, without a name--a sort of vague uneasiness, which had seemed to creep over him whenever he had seen her during those months--a sense of incongruity between her light prattle and his own inmost thoughts and holiest feelings? It was so slight that as yet he had never faced it. He recognised now it was because his heart had refused to face it. And conscience told him, speaking loudly this time, that he must hold back no longer.

"Uncle Anthony," he said, in a troubled voice, "I'm sore afeard I've not set the Lord afore me in that matter. I never saw it so afore. But now you've set me on it, I can't deny that we shouldn't pull same way. But what then? Must I give her up? Mayn't I pray the Lord to touch her heart, and give her to me, any longer?"

The old man looked into the sorrowful eyes of the young man, whom he loved as dearly as if he had been his own son.

"Dear lad," he said, "pray the Lord to bring her to Himself. That's safe to be His will, for He willeth not the death of a sinner. But as to giving her to thee, if I were thou, Tom, I'd leave that with Him.

Meantime, thy way's plain. 'Be ye not unequally yoked together.' The command's clear as daylight. Never get a clog to thy soul. Thou canst live without Jenny Lavender; but couldst thou live without Jesus Christ?"

Tom shook his head, without speaking.

"To tell truth, Tom, I'm not sorry she's going away. Maybe the Lord's sending her hence, either to open her eyes and send her back weary and cloyed with the world she's going into so gaily now, or else to open thine, and show thee plain, stripped of outside glitter, the real thing she is, that thou mayest see what a sorry wife she would make to a Christian man. No, I'm not sorry. And unless I mistake greatly, Tom, the time's coming when thou shalt not be sorry neither. In the meantime, 'tarry thou the Lord's leisure.' If He be the chief object of thy desire, thy desire is safe to be fulfilled. 'This is the will of G.o.d, even our sanctification.'"

They turned to the left at the top of the hill, and went a few yards along the lane, to a little cottage embowered in ivy, which was Anthony's home.

"Wilt thou come in, Tom, lad?"

"No, Uncle, I thank you. You've opened my eyes, but it's made 'em smart a bit too much to face the light as yet. I'll take a sharp trudge over the moor, and battle it out with myself."

"Take the Lord with thee, lad. Satan'll have thee down if thou doesn't.

He's strong and full o' wiles, and if he can't conquer thee in his black robe, he'll put on a white one. There's no harm in thy saying to the Lord, 'Lord, Thou knowest that I love Jenny Lavender'; but take care that it does not come before, 'Lord, Thou knowest that I love _Thee_.'

Maybe He's putting the same question to thee to-night, that He did to Peter at the lake-side."

"Ay, ay, Uncle. I'll not forget. G.o.d bless thee!"

Tom wrung old Anthony's hand, and turned away.

One moment the old man paused before he went in.

"Lord, Thou lovest the lad better than I do," he said, half aloud. "Do Thy best for him!"

Then he lifted the latch, and met a warm welcome from his wife Persis.

"Mrs Jenny, your servant!" said the smooth tones of Robin Featherstone at the farmhouse door, about twenty hours later. "The horse awaits your good pleasure, and will only be less proud to bear you than I shall to ride before you."

Jenny's silly little heart fluttered at the absurd compliment.

"Farewell, Grandmother," she said, going up to the old lady. "Pray, your blessing."

Old Mrs Lavender laid her trembling hand on the girl's head.

"May G.o.d bless thee, my maid, and make thee a blessing! I have but one word for thee at the parting, and if thou wilt take it as thy motto for life, thou mayest do well. 'Look to the end.' Try the ground afore thou settest down thy foot. 'Many a cloudy morrow turneth out a fair day,' and ''tis ill to get in the hundred and lose in the shire.' So look to the end, Jenny, and be wise in time. 'All that glittereth is not gold,' and all gold does not glitter, specially when folk's eyes be shut. We say down in my country, 'There's a hill against a stack all Craven through,' and thou'lt find it so. G.o.d keep thee!"

Jenny's father gave her a warm embrace and a hearty blessing, and his hand went to his eyes as he turned to Robin Featherstone.

"Fare you well, Robin," said he, "and have a care of my girl."

The elegant Mr Featherstone laid his hand upon that portion of his waistcoat which was supposed to cover his heart.

"Mr Lavender, it will be the pride of my heart to serve Mrs Jenny, though it cost my life."

He sprang on the brown horse, and Jenny, helped by her father, mounted the pillion behind him. Women very seldom rode alone at that day.

Kate ran after them, as they started, with an old shoe in her hand, which she delivered with such good (or bad) effect that it hit the horse on the ear, and made it shy. Happily, it was a sedate old quadruped, not given to giddy ways, and quickly recovered itself.

"Good luck!" cried Kate, as they rode away.

A second horse followed, ridden by one of Colonel Lane's stable-boys, carrying Jenny's two bags.

It was not a mile from the farm to Bentley Hall, and they were soon in the stable-yard, where Jenny alighted, and was taken by Featherstone into the servants' hall, where with another complimentary flourish he introduced her to the rest of the household.

"My lords and ladies, I have the honour to present to you the Lady Jane Lavender."

"Now you just get out of my way, with your lords and ladies," said the cook, pushing by them. "Good even, Jenny. We've seen Jenny Lavender afore, every man jack of us."

Mr Featherstone got out of the way without much delay, for the cook had a gridiron in his hand, and he had been known before now to box somebody's ears with that instrument.

He recovered his dignity as soon as he could, and suggested that Jenny should go up to the chamber of her new mistress.

"Maybe Mrs Millicent should be pleased to take her," he said, making a low bow to Mrs Lane's maid.

"She knows her way upstairs as well as I do," answered Millicent bluntly. "Have done with your airs, Robin! and prithee don't put Jenny up to 'em.