“It is,” Tinman sounded his voice at a great depth, reflectively.  Glad of taking the part she was perpetually assuming of late, he put out his hand and said:  “But it may have been ordained for our good, Martha.”

“True, dear,” said she, with an earnest sentiment of thankfulness to the Power which had led him round to her way of thinking and feeling.

CHAPTER XI

Annette had gone to the big metropolis, which burns in colonial imaginations as the sun of cities, and was about to see something of London, under the excellent auspices of her new friend, Mary Fellingham, and a dense fog.  She was alarmed by the darkness, a little in fear, too, of Herbert; and these feelings caused her to chide herself for leaving her father.

Hearing her speak of her father sadly, Herbert kindly proposed to go down to Crikswich on the very day of her coming.  She thanked him, and gave him a taste of bitterness by smiling favourably on his offer; but as he wished her to discern and take to heart the difference between one man and another, in the light of a suitor, he let her perceive that it cost him heavy pangs to depart immediately, and left her to brood on his example.  Mary Fellingham liked Annette.  She thought her a sensible girl of uncultivated sensibilities, the reverse of thousands; not commonplace, therefore; and that the sensibilities were expanding was to be seen in her gradual unreadiness to talk of her engagement to Mr. Tinman, though her intimacy with Mary warmed daily.  She considered she was bound to marry the man at some distant date, and did not feel unhappiness yet.  She had only felt uneasy when she had to greet and converse with her intended; especially when the London young lady had been present.  Herbert’s departure relieved her of the pressing sense of contrast.  She praised him to Mary for his extreme kindness to her father, and down in her unsounded heart desired that her father might appreciate it even more than she did.

Herbert drove into Crikswich at night, and stopped at Crickledon’s, where he heard that Van Diemen was dining with Tinman.

Crickledon the carpenter permitted certain dry curves to play round his lips like miniature shavings at the name of Tinman; but Herbert asked, “What is it now?” in vain, and he went to Crickledon the cook.

This union of the two Crickledons, male and female; was an ideal one, such as poor women dream of; and men would do the same, if they knew how poor they are.  Each had a profession, each was independent of the other, each supported the fabric.  Consequently there was mutual respect, as between two pillars of a house.  Each saw the other’s faults with a sly wink to the world, and an occasional interchange of sarcasm that was tonic, very strengthening to the wits without endangering the habit of affection.  Crickledon the cook stood for her own opinions, and directed the public conduct of Crickledon the carpenter;