Tales of the Five Towns

sums out of various items connected with the institution of marriage. Bursley is next door to Hanbridge, and Lionel happened then to be cashier of the Bursley branch of t

ty-eight, an orphan, and a schoolmistress. She, too, had celibate rooms in Park Terrace, and it was owing to this coincidence that Lionel had made her acquaintance si

, stopping for him as she raised her

,' he replied, without

which matched her dress and formed a sort of canopy and frame for that intelligent, tantalizing face. He remembered that of late he and she had grown very intimate; and it came upon him with a shock, as though he had just opened a telegram which said so, that May, and not the other girl, was his destined mate. And he thought of her fortune, tiny but nevertheless useful, and how clever she was, and how inexplicably different from the rest o

world! She.... In a flash he knew that he would propose to her that very afternoon. And when he had suggested a stroll towards Moorthorne, and she had deliciously agreed, he was conscious of a tumultuous uplifting and splendid carelessness of spirits. 'Imagine me bringing it to a climax to-day,' he reflected, profo

nd added humorously: '"Broken up"

d out into the park to meditate serio

. They had crossed a couple of smoke-soiled fields, and struck into the o

meditations point?' h

witzerland,' she said. 'I

o foreign clime

nd too!' he exclaimed; and privatel

ioned, with elab

the corner of the toll-house, where the lane from Toft End joins the highroad. This second creatur

ted and ever

errupter at le

nded Miss La

well-known majolica manufacturer, who lived with his sons

women seemed to have deserted him-and then he actually stated that he had forg

Mays fronted each other, confu

May Deane, stiffly and sharply, in a manner

f to an inexplicable but overwhelming

but if you had come t

iled c

d May Deane,