The squire came that night to visit us, as Joyce had predicted. We were still sitting round the supper-table when he came in—a gloomy party. How unlike the merry, argumentative gatherings of old! Joyce and I did not look at one another, but Trayton Harrod glanced now and then at us both. The traces of tears were on my sister's face.

But father pushed his plate aside untouched, and turned to the bailiff with his business manner.

"Will you see to those poor folk down at the camp having a week's wage before they are discharged, Harrod?" said he. "Those of them who won't be needed, I mean."

"We'll see first how many will be needed, sir," answered Harrod, trying to be cheerful.

"Our own folk will be enough," replied father, quietly. "It's rough weather, and there are children down there. It's useless keeping them about for nothing."

Harrod was silent, and father lit his pipe. We none of us spoke of the little child who we knew was in his thoughts, but mother sighed. I think that little grave was very near to another little grave that she had in the abbey church-yard.

The squire shook hands with me just as usual when he came in, looking full into my eyes, with such a concerned look of kind inquiry as made me feel ashamed of my heavy face; but I made an excuse to get away at once—I could not stay in the room. I went into the kitchen to make cakes.

Not long afterwards I heard the front door close upon Trayton Harrod—I knew his step well enough—and then Joyce came into the kitchen. I know I asked her what she wanted in there at that time of day, for I did not care for the squire to be left alone with my parents, but she said that mother had sent her away. I saw Deb raise her eyebrows and purse her mouth in a way that was, as we knew, a sure forerunner of some sharp, good-natured raillery.

"Oh, what was that for, I wonder? What's the secret now?" said she, wiping her big red arms, and then stirring up the fire with a sharp brisk motion that betokened her most biting mood.

"I don't know," said Joyce, but in a tone that said she knew very well.

"Well, well, we've all expected it this long while past," said Deb. "I'm glad it's come at last."

She plunged her hands into the dish-tub once more, and looked up with a comical expression of triumph on her ugly old face.

"I don't know what you mean," said Joyce, faintly.

"Oh, don't you?" answered she. "Perhaps Meg does. Eh, do you know, Margaret?"

"I think you had better mind your own business, or talk of things you know something about," said I, tartly.

But Deb only laughed good-humoredly.

"I suppose you make no doubt it's your pretty face the squire's after, eh, Joyce?" persisted she, mercilessly.

Joyce flushed painfully.

"Don't, Deb, don't," said she.

"Well, my dear, no shame to you," added the old woman; "we have all thought the same thing. But maybe it isn't. Maybe Meg knows what he has come for, and is thinking over what answer she'd give him now."

"It wouldn't take me long to think what answer I should give you," cried I, fairly out of patience. "If the squire wanted an answer from me I could give him one without asking your advice, I dare say. But he's not such a fool."

"No, the squire's no fool," retorted Deb; "but I'm thinking other folk aren't so very far off it. The Lord grant you don't all of you get a lesson stiffer than you reckoned for one of these days, my dears," added she, with a little sigh.

We said no more on the subject. Joyce soon went up-stairs on some household job, and Deb and I went on silently with our work. But before my cakes were ready for the oven mother called me into the parlor. The squire had left. As Joyce had hoped, he had spoken to mother about me.

I knew it the moment I went into the room. I am sure he had not spoken willingly; but that he had said something, I knew the moment I looked at mother. There was a flush upon her cheek and a light in her eye that told of surprise, but of pride and pleasure also. It proved how there was never really any favoritism in her for my sister, for she showed not the slightest disappointment that the squire's proposal was for me and not for Joyce.

"Margaret," said she, sitting down in the big wooden chair opposite to father, who leaned forward in his favorite attitude, as though about to rise—"Margaret, the squire has just been here." She stopped a moment and half smiled. "The squire is very fond of you, Margaret," she added, gravely, going at once, as was her way, to the heart of the matter.

"The squire is fond of us all, I know," I answered, evasively. "He has known us such a long time."

"But he is fond of you in a different way to that," continued mother. "He loves you as a man loves the woman whom he could make his wife."

I did not answer for a bit, and mother, fancying, I suppose, that I must be as surprised as she was at the news, went on: "I had thought once it would be different, but now many things are explained. I think he has loved you ever since you began to grow up. It ought to make any girl feel proud, I'm sure."

"Yes," said I, softly. And I did feel proud, quite as proud as mother could wish, but I was not going to show it in the way that mother expected.

"Of course," she went on, after I had been silent a little while, "I quite understand how such a piece of news must come as a great surprise to you, almost as though it would take your breath away, I dare say. I don't wonder you don't know what to say."

Still I was silent. I stood by the table, twisting the fringe of the table-cover in my hand.

"I don't want to press you now," continued she. "Take your time about it, and tell me your mind in a day or two."

"Did the squire ask you to ask me my mind?" I said then, hurriedly.

It was mother's turn to be silent at that. And I knew that I had guessed aright, and that the squire had probably only had his secret drawn from him against his will by some remark showing the mistake that mother too had made about his love for Joyce. I even felt sure that he had specially begged that I should not be spoken to on the matter.

"Squire Broderick was speaking mostly about your sister," answered mother, evasively. "You know I told you I felt it my duty to set him straight about what you allowed you had made him think mistakenly about. And he was very much relieved when I told him there was no engagement between Joyce and that nephew of his. It's plain to see he thinks no good of him."

"Gently, gently, mother," murmured father, in remonstrating tones.

"But I suppose in that way he came to guess what was in my mind about him and her, and thought it best to put it right," concluded mother.

Of course I saw in a moment that it had all happened exactly as I might have been sure from the squire it would happen. The knowledge gave me courage. "I will give my answer to the squire himself when he asks me," I said, bravely.

Mother looked at me. I fancied there was a half-apologetic look in her eyes.

"The squire will not ask you, Margaret," said she. "I suppose he's timid. I suppose all good men are timid before the woman they love, however much they may really be worthy of her—the worthier perhaps the more so. It seems strange, but the squire'll never ask you to your face. So you'd better make up your mind to it. Your answer'll have to come through your parents in the old-fashioned way."

I went back to my occupation of pulling the fringe of the table-cover.

"But there's no need for you to say anything yet a while, lass," said father, after a few minutes.

It was the first time he had spoken, and I looked at him reassured.

"Oh yes, I think I had just as well say what I have to say now," I answered, with sudden boldness. "What's the good of waiting? I sha'n't change my mind. I can never change my mind. I can't marry Squire Broderick, if that's what you mean he wants."

There was silence. Mother seemed to be actually stupefied.

"But perhaps, after all, it isn't what he wants," added I, cheerfully, after a bit. "He's fond of me, because he has known me ever since I've been a little girl, and—well, because he is fond of me. But perhaps, after all, he doesn't want to marry me. I shouldn't think he would be so silly. I shouldn't be a bit of credit to him. I shouldn't be a bit suited to it. Not because father's a farmer, but because—well, because I'm not that sort of girl, like Joyce."

Mother had found her tongue.

"That's for the squire to decide," said she. "I know well enough it's a rise for any daughter of mine to marry into the Brodericks. Yes, you may say what you like, Laban," insisted she, fearlessly, turning to father, who had looked up with the old fire in his eye. "Our family may be older than his, but as the world goes now he's above us, and marriage with him would be a rise for our child. And I think that it would be a very good thing for one of our girls to be wed with the squire, and that's the truth."

Mother spoke emphatically, as though this were a question that had often arisen between her and father, as indeed I knew that it had, although not on my account. I looked round to see him fire up as I had seen him do before. I waited to hear him say that if the squire thought he was doing us a favor by asking one of us to marry him he was mistaken; but the light had all died out of his eye, and if his lip trembled, it was plain enough that it was not with anger.

"No doubt you're right, Mary," he said, very slowly. "Let class and family and such-like be. There's times when we forget all that. The squire's a good man, a good man."

I was dumb. I had certainly never thought that father would want me to marry the squire. But a retort that had risen to my lips at mother's speech, to the effect that I certainly shouldn't marry the squire, because it would be "a good thing" for me, died away. I was ashamed of it. It was so true that the squire was "a good man," and I was proud of his love.

"I can't marry the squire, mother, because I don't love him," said I, humbly.

Mother rose from her seat in all the height and breadth of her soft gray skirts.

"You and I never were of one mind as to what we meant by love, Margaret," said she. "But you take my advice. You don't say anything about this now, but just go away and think things over in your own mind for a while. Maybe you'll see you're not likely to be loved again as squire loves you. And maybe you'll say to yourself there ain't anything very much better to do than to make yourself worthy of it. Of course I don't know; folk are so different; and there's such a deal talked about love nowadays that most like it's grown to be something better than it was when I was young. But it won't hurt you to consider a while anyway."

"It's no use," said I, doggedly. "I suppose folk are different; but I can never marry a man I don't love as he loves me. I can't help it. That's the truth."

Mother had reached the door; she was going out, but she turned round. She was angry. The squire was rich, a gentleman. She had known him all his life, and knew that he was a good and kind man, and would make a good and true husband. Would not any mother have desired him for a son-in-law? She guessed at no reason why I should not wed him, and I think it was natural that she should be angry at mere obstinacy. I think so now, but I did not think so then.

"You can't marry a man you don't love as he loves you," repeated she, with an accent of something very like scorn. "Well, my girl, let me tell you that the very best sort o' love a woman can have for a man is gratitude, and if she can't live happy with that she's no good woman. There's no happiness comes of it when the woman's the first to love, for it's heartache and no mistake when she must needs pass her life with a man she loves more than he do her. There—I'm prating to the wind, I know. There never was a girl yet thought an old woman had once known what love was. You must go your own way, but you may take my word for it that your opinion about love'll be more worth knowing in twenty years' time than it is now. A chit like you, indeed! At least squire knows what he is about."

And with that she went out of the room and left me standing there, frozen into silence. The torrent of her unwonted speech, poured forth from the furnace of an unwonted fire in her, had fallen upon me like a cold stream of icy water. Had she guessed? Had every one guessed? Was I the sport of the community? Had I worn my heart upon my sleeve indeed?

I turned round to find father's gaze fixed upon me anxiously. I couldn't make out just what it meant—it was so full of a keen yet half-puzzled inquiry; but it was tender and sympathetic, and it soothed my ruffled spirit.

"You mustn't let mother's words hurt you, child," he said, kindly. "Mother's tongue is sharp sometimes, because she puts things in plain English; but she's a wise woman, Meg, a wise woman. There are never any clouds and mists round the tract of country mother travels. She sees things straight."

"I don't believe one person can ever see for another," declared I, stoutly. "However poor my opinion may be, it's all the light I have. I can't wait twenty years to decide what to do now."

Father smiled, but sadly. "Yes, we must all fight our own fight," he said, with a sigh.

"Oh, father, I can't believe you want me to marry Squire Broderick," said I, turning from the reflective which father so loved to the practical side of the question. "You always used to say that you wouldn't like us to marry out of our station."

"My dear," he said, "there's many windows that'll let in light if we'll only open them. But sometimes we're a long while before we'll open more than one window. I dare say, if the truth were known, it wasn't all at once the squire made up his mind that he wanted to marry out of his station. We mustn't forget that, Meg. It shows he loves you truly, child, and that he's a man above the common. The squire's a good man, a good man and true. And, after all, that's more than theories and such like."

I looked up at father anxiously.

"Would you have liked to see me the squire's wife, father?" asked I.

He held out his hand, beckoning me to him, and I went and knelt down at his side.

"Meg," said he, "you've always been a good girl, a bright, brave, smart girl, with understanding of things beyond your years, though, maybe, sometimes that very thing in you has led you to be less wise than quieter folk. You've often been a help and a comfort to me."

My heart swelled big within me, and I could not speak.

"Now, if I say something to you that I wouldn't trust every girl with, will you promise me to be just as wise as you are brave?"

"Yes, father," whispered I.

"I'm afraid when I'm gone, Meg, that mother won't be so well off as I had hoped to leave her."

"Why, what does that matter?" cried I, with the scorn of a youthful and energetic, and also of an inexperienced spirit for such a thing as poverty. "So long as we live in the old place we needn't mind having to be a little more economical. Mother's very lavish now."

Father only sighed. "Besides," continued I, "you're not an old man yet, father. You've many years before you, and the hops'll be better another time."

I said it hopefully, but something in my heart misgave me. I lifted my face to find those gray eyes, dark in the fire's uncertain light, fixed upon me tenderly.

"Child, I don't believe I'm long for this world," said he, gravely. "I don't want mother to know it. Time enough when the day comes, but the doctor has told me that I carry a disease within me that may kill me at any moment."

I felt all the blood ebb away from my heart. I clasped his hand tightly, but I did not speak.

"That's right. You're a brave girl," said he, with a smile. "But you see, when I'm gone, there'll be nobody but you to take care of mother."

"Doctors are often wrong," murmured I, faintly.

"Yes, yes, so they are," answered father, "and I may last many a year yet; but if it were possible, I want to be prepared—I want some one else to be prepared. Perhaps I've done wrong to tell you, Meg. Perhaps it's too heavy a burden for a young heart."

"No, no," cried I, eagerly, though in truth I was frozen with a terrible fear. "I like you to trust me—I like to think you lean upon me."

"I do trust you," repeated he, resting his hand upon my head in that way that he sometimes had. And then he added, "And I trust Squire Broderick too."

I was silent. I began to see his drift.

"The squire will always be our friend," I said. "He has told me so."

"I'm sure of that," replied my father; "but don't you see, Meg, that if the squire wants to marry you, it will be difficult for him to be just the same to you as he has always been."

"Will it?" said I, doubtfully.

"I'm afraid it might be so," answered he; "but of course that must make no difference. I can't teach you what to do in this matter. Nobody can teach you. You must do what your heart tells you. But you're a young lass yet, and if ever you come to think differently of the thing, remember what I said to you to-day, dear, and don't let any fancied pride stand in your way. Where hearts are true and honest, there's no such thing as pride; I learn that the older I grow."

"I will remember it, father," answered I, religiously; and something in my heart forbade me to add, as I wanted to, "But I never shall think differently."

How could I tell him that I loved a man who had never spoken to me of love, who I had every reason to suppose loved another woman, and that woman my own sister? No; I had not the courage so to humble myself; I had not the courage so to grieve him. Mother's voice sounded without. "Bring in prayers, Joyce," called she, using the well-known topsy-turvy phrase that I had known ever since I was a child. "It's late enough."

But as I knelt there that night, mingling my voice with the voices of all those I loved, in the familiar words of the Lord's Prayer, I thought God had been very hard to me, and the fear that he might even take away my father from me brought such a storm of terrified and rebellious agony that I felt I could not honestly say the words that had passed so easily over my head these fifteen years, "Thy will be done."