"If you won't tell, you won't. But you must remember, Kitty dear, I have known you and nursed you ever since you were a tiny child, and you can't change—as you have done—without my noticing it. Now, this Mr. Carter——"
"Yes, I did forget to tell you that he's got frightfully red hair."
"You say he's engaged to Laura Slade?"
"Oppressively so."
"But is he going to marry her?"
"How can I tell, Aunt?"
"Who is he going to marry, Kitty dear?"
CHAPTER XIV
TIN HILL: THE JOURNEY
Now, lead-mining has been stopped in Upper Wharfedale these thirty years, but still a boy who has been brought up in a village there may well have some general knowledge of ores and the methods of getting them. The mining first began in those dim British days before the Romans came, and it has continued on down through the centuries till the influx of foreign lead brought prices below £25 a ton, and the mines could not be worked at a profit.