He’d never been properly in love till then, and if poor Mary Jane was a shadow before he met t’other girl, she sank to be less than nothing at all so soon as Nicky had seen James White’s sweetheart the second time.

In a fortnight, from being an easy-going creature, very fond of cows, and with just an ordinary eye to the main chance, Nicholas Caunter found himself alive and tingling to the soles of his feet with a passionate desire for Cora.  Everything else in life sank out of sight, and he cussed Providence good and hard for playing him such a cruel trick, not seeing it was his own desire for the line of least resistance that had landed him plighted to Mary Jane.

So you see James and his sister both well content, and reckoning in a dim way at the back of their minds that each was going to be boss in the married state, because the money and position was with them.  And James had reached the point when he saw himself married in another six months, after he’d done the autumn work on his farm and could afford three days’ holiday.  He reckoned such a lapse would be largely waste of time, for money-making was his god; but a honeymoon appeared to be counted upon by Cora, and he’d yielded reluctantly in that particular.  Then Mary Jane, she hoped to be wedded along with her brother, and counted on a very fine holiday with Nicholas after, and even thought of going so far as London for it.

So that’s how they stood; and meantime, though Nicholas managed still to hide his misery from Mary Jane, because they’d only been tokened a fortnight, his heart, in truth, was long since gone to Cora.  As for her, she stood in perplexity because she liked her close lover less and less and saw his smallness of vision and lust for the pence with growing hatred and clearness; while, worse still, she couldn’t but see that ’twas all bunkum about Nicholas caring a straw for Mary Jane.

And far deeper than that she saw, because not only did the maiden discover that Caunter was thinking a million times more about her than the other girl; but to her undying amazement she found that Nicholas was working on her heart very fierce indeed and that, though he played the game to the best of his powers and respected her engagement and stood up for James White and said he was a good man, though mean as an east wind and so on, yet she very well knew what had happened to the pair of ’em, and being a brave woman and much the cleverest of the four, she faced the situation in secret and put it to herself in plain English.

Meantime, Cora’s aunt was casting about for her own comfort, after the girl should wed with White, and planning her arrangements without a thought that clouds were in the sky.

And then came the amber heart into the affair, and to Cora’s immense astonishment James gave her a gift.

Him and his sister had talked on the subject of presents and she’d told him that ’twas rather a surprise to her that Nicholas hadn’t produced no tokening ring as yet, and James had supported Nicholas in that matter, and said money was money, and his cowman hadn’t got much at best and far too little anyway to waste ten shillings in sentiment.