Dallory Hall was empty again. William Adair had quitted it, his mission there over. Richard North was thinking about removing the furniture; but in truth he did not know what to do with it. There was no hurry, for Miss Dallory said she did not intend to let it again at present.
Perhaps the only one not just now in a state of bliss was Jelly. Jelly had made a frightful discovery--Tim Wilks was faithless. For several months--as it came out--Mr. Wilks had transferred his allegiance from herself to Molly Green, whom he was secretly courting at Whitborough. At least, he was keeping it from Jelly. The truth was, poor Tim did not dare to tell her. Jelly heard of it in a manner that astounded her. Spending a Sunday at Whitborough with Mrs. Beverage's servants, Jelly went to morning service at one of the churches. "Pate" took her to a particular church, she said. And there she heard the banns of marriage read out, for the first time of asking, between Timothy Wilks, bachelor, and Mary Green, spinster. Jelly very nearly shrieked aloud in her indignation. Had the culprits been present, she might have felt compelled to box their ears in coming out. It proved to be true. Tim and Molly were going to be married, and Tim was furnishing a pretty cottage at Whitborough.
And that is how matters at present stood in Dallory.
One autumn day, when the woods were glowing with their many colours, and the guns might be heard making war on the partridges, Richard North overtook one of his Flemish workmen at the base of a hill about half-a-mile from his works. The man was wheeling a wheelbarrow that contained sand, but not in the handy manner that an Englishman would have done it, and Richard took it himself.
"Can't you learn, Snaude?" he said, addressing the man. "See here; you should stoop: you must not get the barrow nearly upright. See how you've spilt the sand."
Wheeling it along and paying attention to nothing else, Richard took no notice of a basket-carriage that was coming down the opposite hill. It pulled up when it reached him. Looking up, Richard saw Miss Dallory. Resigning the wheelbarrow to the man, Richard took the hand she held out.
"Yes," he said laughing, "you stop to shake hands with me now, but you won't do it soon."
"No? Why not?" she questioned.
"You saw me wheeling the barrow along?"
"Yes. It did not look very heavy."