Naturally Ella knew all about Sidney.  She enjoyed the entire confidence of Mrs Penkethman, and what Mrs Penkethman didn’t know of the private history of the upper classes in Bursley did not amount to very much.

These were nearly the last words that Ella spoke to Horace that afternoon.  The introduction was made, and Sidney slipped into the party as comfortably as he slipped into everything, like a candle slipping into a socket.  But nevertheless Ella talked no more.  She just stared at Sidney, and listened to him.  Horace was proud that Sidney had made such an impression on her; he was glad that she showed no aversion to Sidney, because, in the event of Horace’s marriage, where would Sidney live, if not with Horace and Horace’s wife?  Still, he could have wished that Ella would continue to display her conversational powers.

Presently, Sidney lighted a cigarette.  He was of those young men whose delicate mouths seem to have been fashioned for the nice conduct of a cigarette.  And he had a way of blowing out the smoke that secretly ravished every feminine beholder.  Horace still held to his boyhood’s principles; but he envied Sidney a little.

At the conclusion of the festivity these two women naturally could not be permitted to walk home alone.  And, naturally, also, the four could not walk abreast on the narrow pavements.  Horace went first with Mrs Penkethman.  He was mad with anxiety to appropriate Ella, but he dared not.  It would not have been quite correct; it would have been, as they say in Bursley, too thick.  Besides, there was the question of age.  Horace was over thirty, and Mrs Penkethman was also—­over thirty; whereas Sidney was twenty-one, and so was Ella.  Hence Sidney walked behind with Ella, and the procession started in silence.  Horace did not look round too often—­that would not have been quite proper—­but whenever he did look round the other couple had lagged farther and farther behind, and Ella seemed perfectly to have recovered her speech.  At length he looked round, and lo! they had not turned the last corner; and they arrived at Mrs Penkethman’s cottage at Hillport a quarter of an hour after their elders.

IV

The wedding cost Horace a large sum of money.  You see, he could not do less than behave handsomely by the bride, owing to his notorious admiration for her; and of course the bridegroom needed setting up.  Horace practically furnished their home for them out of his own pocket; it was not to be expected that Sidney should have resources.  Further, Sidney as a single man, paying seven-and-six a week for board and lodging, could no doubt struggle along upon three pounds weekly.  But Sidney as a husband, with the nicest girl in the world to take care of, and house-rent to pay, could not possibly perform the same feat.  Although he did no more work at the manufactory—­Horace could not have been so unbrotherly as to demand it—­Horace paid him eight pounds a week instead of three.