Page:Fletcher--Where Highways Cross.djvu/149

 and the women. To every detail and arrangement he gave his own personal attention, not merely because Mally was cumbered with much serving, but because it pleased him intensely to feel that what he did was bringing him nearer to the happiness that he desired. It seemed to him that all the joy on earth, all the sweetness of life was being compressed by time into one perfect day, to which even a day like this was but a faint prelude. As he cantered through the lanes or across the meadows, there was within him a consciousness that every bird swinging on the slender hawthorn sprays, or flitting from one hedge to another, cried to him "To-morrow!" and that his horse's footfall echoed the same word.

Immediately after the day upon which Elisabeth consented to become his wife, Hepworth decided that she should forthwith leave the farmstead and take up her residence in the neighbouring village until the time for their marriage arrived. It did not