be said that his elder children had come to much, for all his piety.
But, on the whole, Bolderfield only wished he stood as well with the
powers talked about in chapel every Sunday as Isaac did.

As for Bessie, she had been a wasteful woman all her life, with never a
bit of money put by, and never a good dress to her back. But, 'Lor bless
yer, there was a many worse folk nor Bessie.' She wasn't one of your
sour people--she could make you laugh; she had a merry heart. Many a
pleasant evening had he passed chatting with her and Isaac; and whenever
they cooked anything good there was always a bite for him. Yes, Bessie
had been a good niece to him; and if he trusted any one he dared say
he'd trust them.

'Well, how's Eliza, Muster Bolderfield?' said a woman who passed him in
the village street.

He replied, and then went his way, sobered again, dreading to find
himself at the cottage once more, and in the stuffy upper room with the
bed and the dying woman. Yet he was not really sad, not here at least,
out in the air and the sun. There was always a thought in his mind, a
fact in his consciousness, which stood between him and sadness. It had
so stood for a long, long time. He walked through the village to-night
in spite of Eliza and his sixty years with a free bearing and a
confident glance to right and left. He knew, and the village knew, that
he was not as other men.

He passed the village green with its pond, and began to climb a lane
leading to the hill. Halfway up stood two cottages sideways. Phloxes and
marigolds grew untidily about their doorways, and straggly roses,
starved a little by the chalk soil, looked in at their latticed windows.