And then Jonas
paid his first instalment at dead of night and got a receipt for the same.
'Twas after that the carpenter's anxieties began. He'd hoped that Milly
would be a lot cast down by this reverse and that he'd fill the gap and
comfort her and support her through the sad affair; but she didn't want no
support. In fact she talked most sensible about being jilted and confessed
that it might be all for the best in the long run. "Nought happens save by
the will of Heaven," she said, "and I can look at it with a good
conscience which be a tower of strength, and I can even go so far as to
tell myself that Daisy Newte may make a better wife for Bill than me; for
that's where his eyes are turning."
"Daisy Newte! Good God--the blindness of the bachelor male!" swore Jonas.
And from that day forward he was at her--respectful, but unsleeping.
His fear was that, now she stood free of a man, her nice feeling would
take her from under his roof and of course there was plenty of women who
pointed this out to Milly Bassett; but in her fine way she despised the
mind that thinks evil for choice and said 'twas a pity that good thoughts
was not put into the human heart instead of bad ones.
She said: "If my character can't rise above Thorpe-Michael, 'tis pity. And
the man, or woman, who could whisper a bad thought against Jonas Bird be
beneath my notice and his'n.
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