Then Cora left her husband at the ‘Three Travellers’ and walked down to Mrs. Dene, and found her aunt sitting helpless afore a score of letters from married folk all very wishful to join her.

Cora told her news and how she’d found and married Nicholas; and then she brought peace and order and hope into her aunt’s heart, according to her custom; and the sight of her awakened a great hope in Mrs. Dene, though it sank again when she grasped that Cora was no more a free creature, but given over to the keeping of a man.

And then, of course, the old woman said exactly what her niece knew she would say.  Cora had looked through the applications and didn’t feel too hopeful about any of ’em.

“The first thing is the cooking,” she declared.  “A bad cook’s going to shorten your life, Aunt Sarah, and my mind always sinks when I think of it.  You’re thinner than when I saw you last, for that matter, and I’m going to make one of my mutton pies for you this day before I say ‘good-bye.’”

And then—­a world of anxiety in her eyes—­Mrs. Dene wondered if ’twas in the power of possibility that Nicholas Caunter would see his way to come to her if all she’d got was left to Cora in the hereafter, under her will.

And the young woman stared with amazement, and declared no such thought as that had ever crossed her mind.

“Wonders never cease with me,” she said, “but Nicky’s all for foreign parts, I’m afraid, and a State-aided passage to Canada.  I’ve begged him to think twice, I may tell you, because the sea between you and me is a very cruel thought; but since you want a man and his wife, which was always your ambition, and since I should certainly lengthen your days if I was to bide along with you, and be happier far than I should be anywhere else on earth, I’ll strive with my husband about it and try my bestest to change his plans.”

So she went for Nicholas and he came along.  Of course, he couldn’t play-act like his wife; but she’d schooled him pretty well, and he came out with flying colours and sacrificed his hopes of Canada so that Cora and her aunt shouldn’t be parted.

It worked very well indeed, and the old woman had five more happy years afore a tremendous Christmas dinner finished her.

And then Cora came by the house and three hundred a year.

You’d think, in your worldly wisdom, that such a woman as her might have been rather doubtful as a wife, and was like to trade on her fatal cleverness when up against the changes and chances of married life; but no such thing was ever reported against Cora Caunter.  She loved Nick and ran straight in double harness, and brought the man four very fine childer.  And the eldest girl wears the amber heart to chapel on Sundays; because, as Cora told Nicholas, ’tis no use having a heirloom if you don’t let the people see it.

As for James White, one dose of romantics was enough for him and he never went courting no more; but Mary Jane found a very good husband and left Hartland along with him after marriage.  She quarrelled with James about the wedding-breakfast because she wanted for him to pay, but he would not.