THREE:Fate, having thus generously given him a start, continued to encourage him in the race he was running against her. On the way to Rye he fell in with Bertie Ditch. Bertie was going to marry a girl up at [Pg 162]Brightling, and Robert found that there was nothing easier than to discuss with him the ways and means of marriage. From his ravings on his marriage in particular precious information with regard to marriage in general could be extracted. Oh, yes, he had heard of fellows who got married by licence, but banns were more genteel, and he didn't doubt but that a marriage by banns was altogether a better and more religious sort. He and Nellie, etc., etc.... Oh, he didn't think a licence cost much��two or three pounds, and an ordinary wedding by banns would cost quite as much as that; when one had paid for the choir and the ringers and the breakfast. Now he and Nellie ... oh, of course, if you were in a hurry��yes; but anyhow he thought one of the parties must live a week or so in the parish where the marriage was to take place.

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THREE:In the afternoon Lucy Hartwell came in to see Margaret, bringing some little gift, and asking how she fared. Wells could distinctly hear all that passed in the room below; and soon collected, from the conversation, that the visitor was the daughter of old Hartwell the ale-seller. He remembered her a pretty little girl when he had left the village��with hazel eyes twinkling and brightening like a star; with a step as light, and a form as delicate and graceful as the greenwood fairy to whom she used to be likened. Her voice had deepened a little, but it had still much of the sprightly animation of her childhood.

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