They found the Fat Lady sitting up and awaiting them in some anxiety.

“It’s on account of the dog,” she explained while ’Dolph devoured them with caresses.  “I managed to keep him pretty quiet all day, but when the time came for me to perform, and I had to leave him locked in the van here, he started turnin’ it into a menagerie.  Gavel has sent around twice to say that if it’s a case of ‘Love me, love my dog,’ him and me’ll have to break contracts.”

“Leadin’ this sort o’ life don’t suit ’im,” said Tilda.

“No,” Mrs. Lobb agreed; “he’s drunk as a lord again, and his temper something awful.”

Tilda stared.

“I meant the dog,” she explained.

So the children, looking forth and judging the coast clear, took Godolphus for a scamper across the dark meadow.  They returned to find their hostess disrobed and in bed, and again she had the tea-equipage arrayed and the kettle singing over the spirit-lamp.

“It’s healthful, no doubt—­all this exercise,” she remarked with a somewhat wistful look at their glowing faces; “but it’s not for me,” she added.  “There’s another thing you’ve taught me.  I’ve often wondered, sittin’ alone here—­supposin’ as there had really been a Mr. Lobb—­how I could have done with the children.  Now, my dears, it’s pleasant havin’ your company; but there’s an anxiety about it that I find wearin’.  A week of it, and I’d be losin’ flesh.  And the moral is, if you’re an artist you must make sacrifices.”

The Fat Lady sighed.  She sighed again and more heavily as, having extinguished the lamp, she composed herself to sleep.

Early next morning they bade her farewell, and departed with her blessing.  Now Tilda the match-maker had arranged in her mind a very pretty scene of surprise and reconciliation.  But, as she afterwards observed, “there’s times when you worrit along for days together, an’ no seemin’ good of it; an’ then one mornin’ you wakes up to find everything goin’ like clockwork, an’ yerself standin’ by, an’ watchin’, an’ feelin’ small.”

So it happened this morning as they drew near to Weston.  There in the morning light they saw the broken lock with a weir beside it, and over the weir a tumble of flashing water; an islet or two, red with stalks of loosestrife; a swan bathing in the channel between.  And there, early as they came, Sam Bossom stood already on the lock-bank; but not awaiting them, and not alone.  For at a distance of six paces, perhaps, stood the girl of the blue sun-bonnet, confronting him.

Tilda gasped.

“And I got ’er promise to wait till I called ’er.  It’s—­it’s unwomanly!”

Sam turned and caught sight of them.  He made as though to leave the girl standing, and came a pace towards them, but halted.  There was a great awe in his face.

“’Enery’s broke it off!” he announced slowly, and his voice trembled.

“I could a-told yer that.”  Tilda’s manner was short, as she produced the letter and handed it to him.  “There—­go to ’im,” she said in a gentler voice as she slipped past the girl. “’E’s good, as men go; and ’e’s suffered.”