I rose, and held out my hand to Mr Stoddart.  He rose likewise, and took it kindly, conducted me to the room below, and ringing the bell, committed me to the care of the butler.

As I approached the gate, I met Jane Rogers coming back from the village.  I stopped and spoke to her.  Her eyes were very red.

“Nothing amiss at home, Jane?” I said.

“No, sir, thank you,” answered Jane, and burst out crying.

“What is the matter, then?  Is your——­”

“Nothing’s the matter with nobody, sir.”

“Something is the matter with you.”

“Yes, sir.  But I’m quite well.”

“I don’t want to pry into your affairs; but if you think I can be of any use to you, mind you come to me.”

“Thank you kindly, sir,” said Jane; and, dropping a courtesy, walked on with her basket.

I went to her parents’ cottage.  As I came near the mill, the young miller was standing in the door with his eyes fixed on the ground, while the mill went on hopping behind him.  But when he caught sight of me, he turned, and went in, as if he had not seen me.

“Has he been behaving ill to Jane?” thought I.

As he evidently wished to avoid me, I passed the mill without looking in at the door, as I was in the habit of doing, and went on to the cottage, where I lifted the latch, and walked in.  Both the old people were there, and both looked troubled, though they welcomed me none the less kindly.

“I met Jane,” I said, “and she looked unhappy; so I came on to hear what was the matter.”

“You oughtn’t to be troubled with our small affairs,” said Mrs. Rogers.

“If the parson wants to know, why, the parson must be told,” said Old Rogers, smiling cheerily, as if he, at least, would be relieved by telling me.

“I don’t want to know,” I said, “if you don’t want to tell me.  But can I be of any use?”

“I don’t think you can, sir,—­leastways, I’m afraid not,” said the old woman.

“I am sorry to say, sir, that Master Brownrigg and his son has come to words about our Jane; and it’s not agreeable to have folk’s daughter quarrelled over in that way,” said Old Rogers.  “What’ll be the upshot on it, I don’t know, but it looks bad now.  For the father he tells the son that if ever he hear of him saying one word to our Jane, out of the mill he goes, as sure as his name’s Dick.  Now, it’s rather a good chance, I think, to see what the young fellow’s made of, sir.  So I tells my old ’oman here; and so I told Jane.  But neither on ’em seems to see the comfort of it somehow.  But the New Testament do say a man shall leave father and mother, and cleave to his wife.”

“But she ain’t his wife yet,” said Mrs Rogers to her husband, whose drift was not yet evident.

“No more she can be, ’cept he leaves his father for her.”

“And what’ll become of them then, without the mill?”

“You and me never had no mill, old ’oman,” said Rogers; “yet here we be, very nearly ripe now,—­ain’t us, wife?”