And as they turned away Jim’s voice thundered after them from his stronghold in the mistal.

  “From av-ver-lasstin’—­THOU ART GAWD! 
  To andless ye-ears ther sa-ame!”

The sisters stood listening.  They looked at each other.

“I say!” said Gwenda.

“Isn’t he gorgeous?  We’ll have to come again.  It would be a sin to waste him.”

“It would.”

“When shall we come?”

“There’s heaps of time.  That voice won’t run away.”

“No.  But he might get pneumonia.  He might die.”

“Not he.”

But Alice couldn’t leave it alone.

“How about Sunday?  Just after dinner?  He’ll be clean then.”

“All right.  Sunday.”

But it was not till they had passed the schoolhouse outside Garth village that Alice’s great idea came to her.

“Gwenda!  The Concert!  Wouldn’t he be ripping for the Concert!”

XX

But the concert was not till the first week in December; and it was in November that Rowcliffe began to form the habit that made him remarkable in Garth, of looking in at the Vicarage toward teatime every Wednesday afternoon.

Mrs. Gale, informed by Essy, was the first to condole with Mrs. Blenkiron, the blacksmith’s wife, who had arranged to provide tea for Rowcliffe every Wednesday in the Surgery.

“Wall, Mrs. Blenkiron,” she said, “yo’ ‘aven’t got to mak’ tae for yore doctor now?”

“Naw.  I ’aven’t,” said Mrs. Blenkiron.  “And it’s sexpence clane gone out o’ me packet av’ry week.”

Mrs. Blenkiron was a distant cousin of the Greatorexes.  She had what was called a superior manner and was handsome, in the slender, high-nosed, florid fashion of the Dale.

“But there,” she went on.  “I doan’t groodge it.  ’E’s yoong and you caann’t blaame him.  They’s coompany for him oop at Vicarage.”

“‘E’s coompany fer they, I rackon.  And well yo’ med saay yo’ doan’t groodge it ef yo knawed arl we knaw, Mrs. Blenkiron.  It’s no life fer yoong things oop there, long o’ t’ Vicar.  Mind yo”—­Mrs. Gale lowered her voice and looked up and down the street for possible eavesdroppers—­“ef ’e was to ’ear on it, thot yoong Rawcliffe wouldn’t be ‘lowed t’ putt ’s nawse in at door agen.  But theer—­there’s nawbody’d be thot crool an’ spittiful fer to goa an’ tall ’im.  Our Assy wouldn’t.  She’d coot ’er toong out foorst, Assy would.”

“Nawbody’ll get it out of mae, Mrs. Gale, though it’s wae as ’as to sooffer for ’t.”

“Eh, but Dr. Rawcliffe’s a good maan, and ‘e’ll mak’ it oop to yo’, naw feear, Mrs. Blenkiron.”

“And which of ’em will it bae, Mrs. Gaale, think you?”

“I caann’t saay.  But it woonna bae t’ eldest.  Nor t’ yoongest—­joodgin’.”

“Well—­the lil’ laass isn’ breaaking ’er ‘eart fer him, t’ joodge by the looks of ’er.  I naver saw sech a chaange in anybody in a moonth.”