“Nonsense, Nell,” cried her father, frowning at her in a significant manner to express his disapproval of this folly, and in so doing looking at her for the first time since her suitor’s advent.  “Every young woman likes new gowns, and of course you’ll take Steph’s friendly offer, and thank him kindly for it.  He knows that I’m pretty hard-up just now, and won’t be able to do much for you; and it wouldn’t do for Mrs. Whitelaw of Wyncomb to begin the world with a shabby turn-out.”

“Of course not,” replied the farmer; “I’ll bring you the cash to-morrow evening, Nell; and the sooner you buy your wedding-gown the better.  There’s nothing to wait for, you see.  I’ve got a good home to take you to.  Mother Tadman will march, of course, between this and my wedding-day.  I sha’n’t want her when I’ve a wife to keep house for me.”

“Of course not,” said the bailiff.  “Relations are always dangerous about a place—­ready to make mischief at every hand’s turn.”

“O, Mr. Whitelaw, you won’t turn her out, surely—­your own flesh and blood, and after so many years of service.  She told me how hard she had worked for you.”

“Ah, that’s just like her,” growled the farmer.  “I give her a comfortable home for all these years, and then she grumbles about the work.”

“She didn’t grumble,” said Ellen hastily.  “She only told me how faithfully she had served you.”

“Yes; that comes to the same thing.  I should have thought you would have liked to be mistress of your house, Nell, without any one to interfere with you.”

“Mrs. Tadman is nothing to me,” answered Ellen, who had been by no means prepossessed by that worthy matron; “but I shouldn’t like her to be unfairly treated on my account.”

“Well, we’ll think about it, Nell; there’s no hurry.  She’s worth her salt, I daresay.”

Mr. Whitelaw seemed to derive a kind of satisfaction from the utterance of his newly-betrothed’s Christian name, which came as near the rapture of a lover as such a sluggish nature might be supposed capable of.  To Ellen there was something hideous in the sound of her own name spoken by those hateful lips; but he had a sovereign right so to address her, now and for evermore.  Was she not his goods, his chattels, bought with a price, as much as a horse at a fair?

That nothing might be wanting to remind her of the sordid bargain, Mr. Whitelaw drew a small canvas bag from his pocket presently—­a bag which gave forth that pleasant chinking sound that is sweet to the ears of so many as the music of gold—­and handed it across the hearth to William Carley.

“I’m as good as my word, you see,” he said with a complacent air of patronage.  “There’s the favour you asked me for; I’ll take your IOU for it presently, if it’s all the same to you—­as a matter of form—­and to be given back to you upon my wedding-day.”