voice; "his intentions to start with were beyond reproach. Do you not
remember, on the eve of your wedding, how he swore with tears he would
be good to you? Look, now, what you have made of him. You have
prevented his being good to you by your own excessive goodness to
him. You have spent your time nourishing his bad qualities. Though he
still swears, he never does it with tears. Do you not know the
enormous, the almost insurmountable difficulty there is in not
bullying meekness, in not responding to the cringer with a kick? Weak
and unteachable woman, away with you."

Certainly it is a great responsibility taking a man into one's life.
It is also an astonishment to me that I write thus in detail of Mrs.
Dawson, for she has nothing whatever to do with the story.

"Who is it?" asked Mr. Dawson; immediately adding, "Say I'm engaged."

"He gave no name, sir. He says he wishes to see you on business."

"Business! I don't do business at tea time. Send him away."

But Fritzing, for he it was, would not be sent away. Priscilla had
seen the cottage of her dreams, seen it almost at once on entering the
village, fallen instantly and very violently in love with it
regardless of what its inside might be, and had sent him to buy it.
She was waiting while he bought it in the adjoining churchyard sitting
on a tombstone, and he could neither let her sit there indefinitely
nor dare, so great was her eagerness to have the thing, go back
without at least a hope of it. Therefore he would not be sent away.
"Your master's in," he retorted, when the maid suggested he should
depart, "and I must see him. Tell him my business is pressing."