some one could be found of Judith's size and figure with two right arms, and. also who wanted a wedding dress, and also would be disposed to take this particular one at half the cost of the material, or else to let the gown stand over till after the lapse of a century or thereabouts, when the fashion would prevail for ladies to wear sleeves of a different substance and color from their bodies and skirts.
"'Taint a sort o' a courtin' as I'd give a thankee for," said Jump. "There was Camelford goose fair, and whether he axed her to go wi' him and pick a goose I can't tell, but I know her never went. Then o' Sundays they don't walk one another out. And he doesn't come arter her to the back garden, and she go to him, and no whisperings and kissings. I've listened a score o' times a hoping and a wishing to see and hear the likes, and and never once as I'm a Christian and a female. There were my sister Jane, when she was going to be married, her got that hot and blazin' red that I thought it were scarletine, but it was naught but excitement. But the young mistress, bless 'ee, her gets whiter and colder every day, and I'd say, if such a thing were possible, that her'd rather her never was a going to be married. But you see that aint in natur, leastways wi' us females. I tell 'ee I never seed him once put his arm round her waist. If this be courtin' among gentlefolks, all I say is preserve and deliver me from being a lady."
It was as Jump, in her vulgar way, put it. Judith alone in the house appeared to take no interest in the preparations. It was only after a struggle with her aunt that she had yielded to have the wedding in November. She had wished it postponed till the spring, but Cruel Coppinger and Aunt Dionysia were each for their several ends desirous to have it in the late autumn. Coppinger had the impatience of a lover; and Miss Trevisa the desire to be free from a menial position and lodged in her new house before winter set in. She had amused herself over Othello Cottage ever since Judith had yielded her consent, and her niece saw little of her accordingly.
It suited Coppinger's interest to have a tenant for the solitary cottage, and that a tenant who would excite no suspicions, as the house was employed as a store for various run goods, and it was understood between him and
