In Homespun | Page 9

and then when the china came to me I might have
told him I hadn't the power to sell it; but that wouldn't have looked well
if any one had come to know of it. So I just said straight out--
'The only condition of my having my aunt's money is, that I never part
with the china.'
He was silent a minute, looking out of the porch at the green trees
waving about in the sunshine over the gravestones, and then he says--
'Look here, you seem an honourable girl. I am a collector. I buy china

and keep it in cases and look at it, and it's more to me than meat, or
drink, or wife, or child, or fire--do you understand? And I can no more
bear to think of that china being lost to the world in a cottage instead of
being in my collection than you can bear to think of your aunt's finding
out about the bowl, and leaving the money to your cousin Sarah.'
Of course, I knew by that that he had been gossiping in the village.
'Well?' I said, for I saw that he had something more on his mind.
'I'm an old man,' he went on, 'but that need not stand in the way. Rather
the contrary, for I shall be less trouble to you than a young husband.
Will you marry me out of hand? And then when your aunt dies the
china will be mine, and you will be well provided for.'
No one but a madman would have made such an offer, but that wasn't a
reason for me to refuse it. I pretended to think a bit, but my mind was
made up.
'And the bowl?' I said.
'Of course I'll lend you my bowl, and you shall give me the pieces of
the old one. Lord Worsley's specimen has twenty-five rivets in it.'
'Well, sir,' I said, 'it seems to be a way out of it that might suit both of
us. So, if you'll speak to mother, and if your circumstances is as you
represent, I'll accept your offer, and I'll be your good lady.'
And then I went back to aunt and told her Wilkinses was out of sago,
but they would have some in on Wednesday.
It was all right about the bowl. She never noticed the difference. I was
married to the old gentleman, whose name was Fytche, the next week
by special licence at St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, Queen Victoria Street,
which is very near that beautiful glass and china shop where I had tried
to match the bowl; and my aunt died three months later and left me
everything. Sarah married in quite a poor way. That quinsy of hers cost
her dear.
Mr. Fytche was very well off, and I should have liked living at his
house well enough if it hadn't been for the china. The house was cram
full of it, and he could think of nothing else. No more going out to
dinner; no amusements; nothing as a girl like me had a right to look for.
So one day I told him straight out I thought he had better give up
collecting and sell aunt's things, and we would buy a nice little place in
the country with the money.
'But, my dear,' he said, 'you can't sell your aunt's china. She left it stated

expressly in her will.'
And he rubbed his hands and chuckled, for he thought he had got me
there.
'No, but you can,' I said, 'the china is yours now. I know enough about
law to know that; and you can sell it, and you shall.'
And so he did, whether it was law or not, for you can make a man do
anything if you only give your mind to it and take your time and keep
all on. It was called the great Fytche sale, and I made him pay the
money he got for it into the bank; and when he died I bought a snug
little farm with it, and married a young man that I had had in my eye
long before I had heard of Mr. Fytche.
And we are very comfortably off, and not a bit of china in the house
that's more than twenty years old, so that whatever's broke can be easy
replaced.
As for his collection, which would have brought me in thousands of
pounds, they say, I have to own he had the better of me there, for he left
it by will to the South Kensington Museum.

BARRING THE WAY

I DON'T know how she could have done it. I couldn't have done it
myself. At least, I don't think so. But being lame and small, and