* Rom. v. 2.
Further results were to arise from Norah's wish to visit her poor friend at the workhouse, of which she had never dreamed when she had pondered over Mrs. Cupper's note with such perplexity and pain. Ned Franks, after his first visit to Persis Meade, very often found his way to the little cottage in the dell. As it was scarcely to be supposed that the magnet which drew him there was either the Jew who lodged in the upper room, or the poor old man who lived below, it was soon rumoured in the village that the teacher in Colme school was likely soon to bring home a bride.
"Is all true what folk say about your brother, eh?" asked Ben Stone, the jovial carpenter, of Bessy, who, with Norah at her side, had come to his workshop one bright day in the early spring to speak about the broken leg of a table.
"How can I tell what nonsense folk may say?" answered Bessy, peevishly.
"I guess yon little maid is in the secret," laughed Stone, as he looked at Norah's bright conscious face; "I guess she could tell us when her uncle's going to be married, and who's to be bridesmaid, and who's to be bride? I've only this to say," added the carpenter, bringing down his hammer with force on a nail, as if to give emphasis to his words, "Ned Franks, take him as he is, wooden arm and all, is the finest fellow in these parts, and the only one that I know of who would be a fit partner for such a woman as Persis."
"Well," said Bessy, shrugging her shoulders, "I don't see, for my part, what there's in her to take his fancy. I suppose that he thinks that her quick needle will serve as a portion, and that she'll earn something with that to help to keep the pot boiling."
"She has a right pretty face," observed Stone; "that goes a good way, I guess."
"Oh, it is not that!" exclaimed Norah; "Uncle Ned does not care for money, and values something better than beauty. He told me himself that he has long felt that it is the good Christian that makes the good wife, and that a marriage can be truly happy only when they who are to share an earthly home, also share heavenly hopes together."