As it was, however, the facts to him were simply these.  He was going and she was going.  The day before, he had hurried off to Haytersbank Farm with a small paper parcel in his pocket—­a ribbon with a little briar-rose pattern running upon it for Sylvia.  It was the first thing he had ever ventured to give her—­the first thing of the kind would, perhaps, be more accurate; for when he had first begun to teach her any lessons, he had given her Mavor’s Spelling-book, but that he might have done, out of zeal for knowledge, to any dunce of a little girl of his acquaintance.  This ribbon was quite a different kind of present; he touched it tenderly, as if he were caressing it, when he thought of her wearing it; the briar-rose (sweetness and thorns) seemed to be the very flower for her; the soft, green ground on which the pink and brown pattern ran, was just the colour to show off her complexion.  And she would in a way belong to him:  her cousin, her mentor, her chaperon, her lover!  While others only admired, he might hope to appropriate; for of late they had been such happy friends!  Her mother approved of him, her father liked him.  A few months, perhaps only a few weeks more of self-restraint, and then he might go and speak openly of his wishes, and what he had to offer.  For he had resolved, with the quiet force of his character, to wait until all was finally settled between him and his masters, before he declared himself to either Sylvia or her parents.  The interval was spent in patient, silent endeavours to recommend himself to her.

He had to give his ribbon to his aunt in charge for Sylvia, and that was a disappointment to his fancy, although he tried to reason himself into thinking that it was better so.  He had not time to wait for her return from some errand on which she had gone, for he was daily more and more occupied with the affairs of the shop.

Sylvia made many a promise to her mother, and more to herself, that she would not stay late at the party, but she might go as early as she liked; and before the December daylight had faded away, Sylvia presented herself at the Corneys’.  She was to come early in order to help to set out the supper, which was arranged in the large old flagged parlour, which served as best bed-room as well.  It opened out of the house-place, and was the sacred room of the house, as chambers of a similar description are still considered in retired farmhouses in the north of England.  They are used on occasions like the one now described for purposes of hospitality; but in the state bed, overshadowing so large a portion of the floor, the births and, as far as may be, the deaths, of the household take place.  At the Corneys’, the united efforts of some former generation of the family had produced patchwork curtains and coverlet; and patchwork was patchwork in those days, before the early Yates and Peels had found out the secret of printing the parsley-leaf.  Scraps of costly Indian chintzes