but fear that so much beauty must be inconsistent with the sterling
qualities which make a good wife.

Will's eye fell on Sherwood's note, and he went to bed wondering
what the project might be which was to make their fortune.





CHAPTER 6




He had breakfasted, and was smoking his pipe as he wrote a letter,
when Mrs. Hopper announced the visit, by appointment, of her
brother-in-law, Allchin. There entered a short, sturdy, red-headed
young fellow, in a Sunday suit of respectable antiquity; his
features were rude, his aspect dogged; but a certain intelligence
showed in his countenance, and a not unamiable smile responded to
the bluff heartiness of Warburton's greeting. By original calling,
Allchin was a grocer's assistant, but a troublesome temper had more
than once set him adrift, the outcast of grocerdom, to earn a living
as best he could by his vigorous thews, and it was in one of these
intervals that, having need of a porter at the works, Warburton had
engaged him, on Mrs. Hopper's petition. After a month or so of
irreproachable service, Allchin fought with a foreman, and took his
discharge. The same week, Mrs. Allchin presented him with their
first child; the family fell into want; Mrs. Hopper (squeezed