carried out on the highest grade of farming, 'twas money in any young
man's pocket to come to him at all. And nobody could deny that either. And
he never meddled in his neighbour's affairs, or offered advice, or
unfavourably criticised anything that happened outside his own boundaries.

One daughter only John Warner had, and that was all his family, and her
mother struck the first stroke against his happiness and content, for she
died and left him a widower at five-and-forty. She fell in a consumption,
much to his regret, after they'd been wedded fifteen years; and their girl
was called Jane after her, and 'twas noted that though sprung of such
handsome parents, Jane didn't favour either but promised to be a very
homely woman--a promise she fulfilled.

Her father trained her most industrious to be his right hand, and she grew
up with a lively admiration for him and his opinions. Farming interested
her a lot, and men mildly interested her; but among the hopeful young
blades with an eye on the future who offered to keep company and so on,
there was none Jane saw who promised to be a patch on her parent, and
after his worldly wisdom and grasp of life and shrewd sense, she found the
boys of her own age no better than birds in a hedge. Indeed she had no use
for any among 'em, but made John Warner her god, as he meant she should
do; for, as she waxed in strength and wits, he felt her a strong right
hand. In fact, he took no small pains to identify her with himself for his
own convenience, and secretly determined she shouldn't wed if he could
help it. Little by little he poisoned her mind against matrimony, praised
the independent women and showed how such were better off every way, with
no husband and family to fret their lives and spoil their freedom.

Jane was one, or two-and-twenty by now--a pale, small-eyed maiden with a
fine, strong body and a great appetite for manual work. There was no taint