Patience was the more amazed by a visit from the Miller Luck and his
son. The son was a fine looking young man of three or four and
twenty, who had about three years before married a farmer's daughter,
and had lost her at the birth of her second child. There he stood,
almost as bashful as Stead himself could have been under the
circumstances, while his father paid the astonished Patience the
compliment of declaring that they had put their heads together, and
made up their minds that there was no wench in those parts so like to
be a good mother to the babes, nor so thrifty a housewife as she;
and, that, though there were plenty of maids to be had who could
bring something in their hands, her ways were better than any portion
she could bring.
It really was a splendid offer. The position of miller's wife was
very prosperous, and the Lucks were highly respected. The old miller
was good and kindly, Andrew Luck the steadiest of young men, and
though not seen to much advantage as he stood sheepishly moving from
leg to leg, he was a very fine, tall, handsome youth, with a certain
sweetness and wistfulness in his countenance.
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