She had consoled and inspired him; but she had made the breach with his father final.

When they met she was only a struggling teacher in Miss Mason's school, the daughter of a small farmer in the Vale of Keswick.

Old Fenwick looked much higher for his son.

So there was renewed battle at home, till at last a couple of portrait commissions from a big house near Kendal clinched the matter.

A hurried marriage had been followed by the usual parental thunders.