"I suppose you're going to look out for it?" said Mrs. Collinson in a constrained voice.
"Why, me and Mr. Pond, our school-master, has bought a telescope," replied Bartholomew, grandly. "Yes, we propose to make what they call observations."
"I'm sure you couldn't be better employed," remarked Mrs. Collinson.
The next night, and the next, and the next again, and for several nights Mr. Pond and Mr. Flitcroft engaged in astronomical pursuits. Then, Sunday coming, Mr. Flitcroft heard strange news which sent him post-haste to his widow. She met him at her door—coldly. Mr. Flitcroft gasped out a question.
"Yes," she said, "it is true. Me and Mr. Samuel Green have been cried in church this morning, and I'm going to marry him. So now you know."
"But what shall I do?" cried Bartholomew, scratching his ear.
"Do?" said Mrs. Collinson. "You can do what your precious comet 'll do. Go back where you came from!"
CHAPTER XI
BROTHERS IN AFFLICTION
It used to be said all over the countryside that you might go for a long day's march and search all the towns and villages you came across and then return home without finding such an example of David-and-Jonathan-like affection and devotedness as was seen in the lives of Thomas and Matthew Pogmore. To begin with, they were twins who had lost both parents before they themselves attained to manhood; this sad occurrence seemed to draw them closely together, and at the age of fifty they were still living, bachelors, in the ancient farmhouse wherein they had first seen the light of day. They had never ran after women, young or otherwise, and everybody who knew them—as everybody did—said that they would live and die single. Some uncharitable people said they were much too mean to marry, for they had a great reputation for economy and were well known to look at both sides of a sixpence a long time before they parted with it. And yet there were other people who wondered that they never had married, for they were both well-set-up, good-looking, rosy-cheeked, well-preserved men, who had been handsome in early manhood and were still good to look upon. In all respects they were very much alike in appearance—they were alike, too, in the fact that each possessed a pair of small, sly eyes which always seemed to be on the outlook.