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 more extravagant, although always neat and refined.

Mr. Hearty became conscious of the change. His eyes were often upon his daughter, and his slow-moving brain at work seeking for some explanation of this new phenomenon.

Had he been told of the happiness that had come into her life, he would have been unable to understand it working so great a change. He would also have disapproved, for to his narrow faith any happiness that sprang from association of the opposite sexes, however innocent, was the happiness of sin.

In a passive way Mrs. Hearty also had noticed the change. She had even gone to the length of remarking upon it to Bindle.

"She's growin' into a woman, Martha," had been Bindle's diagnosis; "an' an uncommon pretty woman, too. I s'pose she gets it from 'Earty," he added, whereat Mrs. Hearty had subsided into waves of mirth.

At first Bindle had been in some doubt as to the wisdom of his action in encouraging the romance between the young lovers; but as it progressed and he saw their devotion and Millie's happiness, all scruples vanished.

"I may be a silly ole fool," he muttered to himself one night as he left the radiant Milly at her door, "but I'm 'elpin' them two kids to be 'appy, an' after all, 'appiness is the thing wot matters. If yer can get it through lookin' into