Page:Between Two Loves.djvu/306

Rh hev been the 'Co.' of Burley's Mills I hevn't hed a tiresome minute."

"How's that?"

"Why, ta sees, if a man hes no brains but business brains he's lonesome without business, just as lonesome as a gambler without his cards. Surely to goodness thou isn't tired?"

"Not I. But at Christmas-time, when a man hes a home and a wife—"

"Oh, I see! It's thy wife what is pulling thee from t' mill. I didn't think thou would iver hev been such a fool about a woman."

"She is nobbut a child yet, ta sees."

"Child or not, she is thy master."

Ben laughed, and just then there was a ring at the outer gate.

"That is Jonathan's ring," he said. "I'd know it in a thousand. He always pulls t' bell as if ivery one was dead asleep but himsen." But as he was speaking, Ben was hastening to the gate, and in a few minutes the two men came back together holding each other by the hand, and laughing heartily. Jonas Shuttleworth heard them, and he pushed the papers into a drawer and locked them up carefully. Then he turned to meet his nephew, and though