'Never, Ave!' cried Leonard; 'don't let the thing be talked of.'
'Oh no, I know it would not do with Samuel there; but should we be too young for your old scheme of having a cottage together near?'
'I did not know what the Axworthys were like,' returned Leonard.
'I'll tell you what, Ave, I've heard them both--yes, the old man the worst of the two--say things about women that made my blood boil.' Leonard was quite red as he spoke. 'My father never let my mother see any of the concern, and now I know why. I'll never let you do so.'
'Then there is only one other thing to be done,' said Averil; 'and that is for me to go back to school as a parlour boarder, and take the children with me. It would be very good for them, and dear Mrs. Wood would be very glad to have me.'
'Yes,' said Leonard, 'that is the only right thing, Ave; and the Mays will say so, too. Have you talked it over with them!'
'Well, you had better get their advice. It is the best thing going!' said Leonard, with a sigh that sounded as if he wished he had taken it.
But it was not to Averil that he said so. To her he spoke brightly of serving the time for which he was bound to his uncle; then of making a fresh engagement, that would open a home to her; or, better still, suppose Sam did not wish to go on with the business, he might take it, and make the mill the lovely place it might be. It was to Aubrey May that the boy's real feelings came out, as, on the Sunday evening, they slowly wandered along the bank of the river. Aubrey had seen a specimen of his life at the mill, and had been kept up to the knowledge of its events, and he well knew that Leonard was heartily sick of it. That the occupation was uncongenial and tedious in the extreme to a boy of good ability and superior education--nay, that the drudgery was made unnecessarily oppressive, was not the point he complained of, though it was more trying than he had expected, that was the bed that he had made, and that he must lie upon. It was the suspicion of frauds and tricks of the trade, and, still worse, the company that he lived in. Sam Axworthy hated and tyrannized over him too much to make dissipation alluring; and he was only disgusted by the foul language, coarse manners, and the remains of intemperance worked on in violent temper.