“Harry should never have gone into the army.  He hasn’t any resisting power, hasn’t Harry.  And there is nothing but temptation in the army.  Dear me, Charlotte!  We may well pray not to be led into the way of temptation; for if we once get into it, we are no better off than a fly in a spider’s web.”

She was filling the two empty cups as she spoke, but she suddenly set down the teapot, and listened a moment.  “I hear Steve’s footsteps.  Sit still, Charlotte.  He is opening the door.  I knew it was he.”

“Mother! mother!”

“Here I am, Steve.”

He came in rosy and wet with his climb up the fellside; and, as he kissed his mother, he put out his hand to Charlotte.  Then there was the pleasantest stir of care and welcome imaginable; and Steve soon found himself sitting opposite the girl he loved so dearly, taking his cup from her hands, looking into her bright, kind eyes, exchanging with her those charming little courtesies which can be made the vehicles of so much that is not spoken, and that is understood without speech.

But the afternoons were now very short, and the happy meal had to be hastened.  The clouds, too, had fallen low; and the rain, as Ducie said, “was plashing and pattering badly.”  She folded her own blanket-shawl around Charlotte; and as there was no wind, and the road was mostly wide enough for two, Steve could carry an umbrella, and get her safely home before the darkening.

How merrily they went out together into the storm!  Steve thought he could hardly have chosen any circumstances that would have pleased him better.  It was quite necessary that Charlotte should keep close to his side; it was quite natural that she should lift her face to his in talking; it was equally natural that Steve should bend towards Charlotte, and that, in a moment, without any conscious intention of doing so, he should kiss her.

She trembled and stood still, but she was not angry.  “That was very wrong, Steve.  I told you at the harvest-home what father said, and what I had promised father.  I’ll break no squares with father, and you must not make me do so.”

“I could not help it, Charlotte, you looked so bewitching.”

“Oh, dear! the old, old excuse, ‘The woman tempted me,’ etc.”

“Forgive me, dear Charlotte.  I was going to tell you that I had been very fortunate in Kendal, and next week I am going to Bradford to learn all about spinning and weaving and machinery.  But what is success without you?  If I make every dream come to pass, and have not Charlotte, my heart will keep telling me, night and day, ’All for nothing, all for nothing.’”

“Do not be so impatient.  You are making trouble, and forespeaking disappointment.  Before you have learned all about manufacturing, and built your mill, before you are really ready to begin your life’s work, many a change may have taken place in Sandal-Side.  When Julius comes at Christmas I think he will ask Sophia to marry him, and I think Sophia will accept his offer.  That marriage would open the way for our marriage.”