He sent the prize-books for his college essays to old Coacher, and his silver declamation cup to Miss Martha.

In due season he was high among the Wranglers, and a fellow of his college; and during all the time of these transactions a constant tender correspondence was kept up with Miss Coacher, to whose influence, and perhaps with justice, he attributed the successes which he had won.
By the time, however, when the Rev.Francis Bell, M.A., and Fellow and Tutor of his College, was twenty-six years of age, it happened that Miss Coacher was thirty-four, nor had her charms, her manners, or her temper improved since that sunny day in the springtime of life when he found her picking peas in the garden.

Having achieved his honours he relaxed in the ardour of his studies, and his judgment and tastes also perhaps became cooler.

The sunshine of the pea-garden faded away from Miss Martha, and poor Bell found himself engaged--and his hand pledged to that bond in a thousand letters--to a coarse, ill-tempered, ill-favoured, ill-mannered, middle-aged woman.
It was in consequence of one of many altercations (in which Martha's eloquence shone, and in which therefore she was frequently pleased to indulge) that Francis refused to take his pupils to Bearleader's Green, where Mr.Coacher's living was, and where Bell was in the habit of spending the summer: and he bethought him that he would pass the vacation at his aunt's village, which he had not seen for many years--not since little Helen was a girl and used to sit on his knee.
Down then he came and lived with them.

Helen was grown a beautiful young woman now.