“Is there anybody else?” asked Morton.

“Not as I know.  I never saw anything like—­like lightness with her, with any man.  They said something about the curate but I don’t believe a word of it.”

“And the family approve of it?”

“Every one of them,—­father and stepmother and sisters and all.  My own mother too!  There ain’t a ha’porth against it.  I don’t want any one to give me sixpence in money.  And she should live just like a lady.  I can keep a servant for her to cook and do every mortal thing.  But it ain’t nothing of all that, Mr. Morton.”

“What is it then?”

The poor man paused before he made his answer; but when he did, he made it plain enough.  “I ain’t good enough for her!  Nor more I ain’t, Mr. Morton.  She was brought up in this house, Mr. Morton, by your own grand-aunt.”

“So I have heard, Mr. Twentyman.”

“And there’s more of Bragton than there is of Dillsborough about her; that’s just where it is.  I know what I am and I know what she is, and I ain’t good enough for her.  It should be somebody that can talk books to her.  I can tell her how to plant a field of wheat or how to run a foal;—­but I can’t sit and read poetry, nor yet be read to.  There’s plenty of ’em would sell themselves because the land’s all there, and the house, and the things in it.  What makes me mad is that I should love her all the better because she won’t.  My belief is, Mr. Morton, they’re as poor as job.  That makes no difference to me because I don’t want it; but it makes no difference to her neither!  She’s right, Mr. Morton.  I’m not good enough, and so I’ll just cut it as far as Dillsborough is concerned.  You’ll think of what I said of taking the land?”

Mr. Morton said much more to him, walking with him to the gate of Chowton Farm.  He assured him that the young lady might yet be won.  He had only, Morton said, to plead his case to her as well as he had pleaded up at Bragton and he thought that she would be won.  “I couldn’t speak out free to her,—­not if it was to save the whole place,” said the unfortunate lover.  But Morton still continued his advice.  As to leaving Chowton because a young lady refused him, that would be unmanly—­“There isn’t a bit of a man left about me,” said Larry weeping.  Morton nevertheless went on.  Time would cure these wounds; but no time would give him back Chowton should he once part with it.  If he must leave the place for a time let him put a caretaker on the farm, even though by doing so the loss might be great.  He should do anything rather than surrender his house.  As to buying the land himself, Morton would not talk about it in the present circumstances.  Then they parted at Chowton gate with many expressions of friendship on each side.

John Morton, as he returned home, could not help thinking that the young farmer’s condition was after all better than his own.  There was an honesty about both the persons concerned of which at any rate they might be proud.  There was real love,—­and though that love was not at present happy it was of a nature to inspire perfect respect.  But in his own case he was sure of nothing.