AGAIN, OLD AND NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 1383

talked ; then he had forgotten some little particular
about the garden-fence ; he begged again to see it ;
the afternoon was charming—it was a long way to
the end of the garden—he feared he might lose his
way ; it was very polite of her indeed—she put on her
bonnet and shawl, and walked with him again. All
along those winding walks they went, on grass as
smooth as velvet, and passed first one flower-stand and
then another, up by the rockery and pool of water-lilies,
till they reached the very end of the garden—and there
they sat down in the summer-house. Miss Bassett
was older than her visitor; he was her brother’s
friend, so they felt quite at ease one with another,
and the end of all this walking and talking was, that
Williams, instead of negotiating about the purchase ot
the place, made her an offer of marriage—she had
fifteen thousand pounds beside the place—he made
her an offer of marriage, and was accepted. —

He felt that he had done a good day’s work—
he never was so well satisfied with himself before.
He mounted his horse, and rode home, not to his
cottage at Burton, but to the shop. The side parlour,
where in former days his uncle and aunt, good, quiet
people, had passed their time, and received their
friends, was now his own particular room. Nobod y
entered it without his permission, and there he trans-
acted his private business: and there, as he sat that
evening, in a large easy-chair, in the pride of his
successful wooing, never dreaming of his father, came
that father, for the first time, to claim his love and
his compassion. Had Mr. Osborne risen from the
dead to snatch from him his twenty thousand pounds
of legacy, the shock could hardly have been greater
than it was, when that man, who seemed to belong to

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