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Thornycroft, watching her, "not that I think any love affair is likely to happen in your case; Major Harper is far too much of a settled-down bachelor, and at the same time too old." Agatha pulled a comical face, and made a few solemn allusions to Methuselah.

Thornycroft and Dr. Ianson, with a knowledge that time was precious, had gone at once to the business of the meeting, and were deep in perusal of the marriage-settlement of which they were to be witnesses. "Why, Miss Bowen, you are a richer girl than I knew," said Emma's worthy husband, coming forward, with his round pleasant face.

Thornycroft, who, during the few minutes thus occupied, had bustled in and out of the vestry "really, are we never intending to come home? Somebody must make a diversion here. Major Harper, will you take my wife? Miss Valery, allow me." This fortunate interference effected a change. All moved away a little from the bridegroom, who was still standing by his wife's chair. "Agatha will you come?"

But Miss Bowen's demeanour, so highly creditable, cannot be set forward in words, as it consisted in the very simplest, mildest, and politest "How d'ye do?" Major Harper met her with his accustomed pleasantly tender air, until gradually he recollected himself, looked pensive, and subsided into coldness. It was evident to Agatha that he could not have had any communication from Mrs. Thornycroft.

"The old man's rough this mornin'," a man whispered to another above him; and he saw the furtive grin on the face of Old Man Thornycroft, who leaned against the counter, waiting. His heart jumped into his mouth when after a silence the magistrate spoke: "Mr. Thornycroft, step forward, sir. Put your hand on the book here. Now tell us about that dog of yours that was stole."

The fifth day, Emma Thornycroft appeared, and, strange to say, without any of her little ones; still stranger, without many references to them on her lips, except the general information that they were all getting well now. The busy woman evidently had something on her mind, and plunged at once in médias res. "Agatha, dear, I came to have a little talk with you."

But, face working, eyes blazing, Old Man Thornycroft started forward, and the dog, panting, shrank between boy and mother. "Jim Kirby!" cried the old man, stopping for a moment in the cleared space. "You're magistrate. What you say goes. But that dog thar he's mine! He's my property mine by law!" He jerked a piece of rope out of his overcoat pocket and came on toward the cowering dog.

Then one afternoon, while he was patching the lot fence, with Buck sunning himself near the woodpile, came Old Man Thornycroft. Davy recognized his buggy as it turned the bend in the road. He quickly dropped his tools, called Buck to him, and got behind the house where he could see without being seen.

Agatha, who was quite new to these harmless fraternalities, always occurring in large families, was mightily amused thereat. The first house the little party looked over was, as Emma Thornycroft would have phrased it, "a love of a place!" Dining-room, drawing-rooms, conservatory, gardens quite a gentleman's mansion.

I had told the Barbury Green postmistress, on the morning of my arrival, not to give the Thornycroft address to anybody whatsoever, but finding, as the days passed, that no one was bold enough or sensible enough to ask for it, I haughtily withdrew my prohibition. About this time I began sending envelopes, carefully addressed in a feigned hand, to a certain person at the Oxenbridge Hydro.