THE White House had begun to be slightly agitated by the expectation of letters from Harry, when Mr. Selby came again. There was no immediate acknowledgment of the arrival of the boxes, or reply to the letter which Mrs. Joscelyn had written instantly, as soon as they heard that he had returned to Liverpool; but this both mother and daughter thought was natural enough. Harry no doubt would be sulky; even his mother and sister would be included in his anger against the house, though they had done nothing which he ought to have taken in ill part. He was not a great letter-writer, however, and they were both indulgent to Harry, and willing to give him a little time to get over his “pet,” as Joan called it. Joan took the whole matter cheerily. He was only “in a pet.” He had been “in a pet” before now, and had kept his mother uneasy, refusing to write; but it had gone off, and all had come right again. No doubt it would be the same now: only this time he had some reason for his “pet,” and might be excused if he was a little sulky. “You know, mother,” said Joan, “Harry’s terrible young for his age. He’s just a baby for his age, and he has a deal of you in him. We must let him get over his pet.”

“Oh, Joan, do you think I would keep anybody anxious that was fond of me?” said Mrs. Joscelyn, “but,” she added, with a sigh, “nobody would care very much if it was only me. It is this that gives you all the pull over me, that I care, and you don’t.”

Joan could not contradict this; and there gleamed over her a momentary compassion for her mother, whose lot it seemed to be always to “care,” while nobody cared for her. “You must try and not care so much, mother. We’re none of us worth it,” she said, “but, as for Harry, he’s just in a pet. Leave him alone, and he’ll soon come to himself. My fine ham! I wouldn’t have wasted it on a person that didn’t deserve it. If he don’t write within the week, I will say he’s not worth the salt it’s cured with; but we’ll give him a week; by that time he’ll come round, if he’s a bit sulky just at first. I don’t blame him, for my part.”

Mrs. Joscelyn’s hands had crept together, and clasped each other, with that earnest appeal she was always making to earth and heaven: but they slid asunder hastily when she met Joan’s eyes. She was thankful to allow that it was quite reasonable that Harry should be sulky. “Though he might have thought a little upon me. He might have thought I would suffer most of all. He might have remembered how little I can do, and that I must support everything,” she said to herself, with a few quiet tears. She did not venture to say it even to Joan, though Joan was so much more sympathetic than she could have hoped. Nobody ever thought of anything she might have to suffer. Perhaps on the whole she was supposed to enjoy it. “Making a fuss,” was one of her specialities in everybody’s opinion. Her children were all disposed to think it did not matter very much what the object of “the fuss” was. And thus she was left in her parlour with her mending, a woman surrounded with people belonging to her by nature and the dearest ties, yet altogether alone, as lonely as any poor old maiden in her garret. Nor is this any unusual thing; a fact in which the solitary may find a little uncomfortable alleviation of their special woes.

Mr. Selby came back while the house was in this state of expectation, not anxious as yet, but on the eve of becoming so. He did not send in his card now, but usually presumed so far as to go straight to the parlour door by himself, where he always knocked, however, before entering. This time, he came in the morning, when he knew Joan was not likely to be in the parlour. He was a little nervous, though perhaps it would be too much to say that his heart beat. After forty, a man’s heart requires a very strong inducement to make it beat, that is to say, in any violent manner. But he was a little nervous, and half ashamed at what he was about to do. He went doubtfully to the dairy door, which was standing wide open. Inside Joan could be seen moving briskly about, and her voice was very audible in not very gentle tones. Selby paused a little, and listened to it with a comical concern upon his face. His brow contracted a little with anxious care, though his mouth laughed. Joan was scolding, nothing more or less. “Talk to me about not having time!” she said, “You have time to dress yourself up, and go out to court your lad, night after night. Is that what you call your duty to your neighbour? My word, if your lads were your neighbours, you would keep the commandments easy. Did ever any mortal see such bowls, to be in a Christian person’s dairy? Woman! where do you expect to go? A dairy’s not a dairy if the Queen of England might not eat her dinner off every shelf in it, and give a prize for every brick. That’s what makes the butter sweet, not your lads, or the tricks that you play. Get out of my sight! I could take my hands to you, if I did not think too much of myself.”

Philip Selby stood in the yard with a comical look on his face, and listened. Was it fright? There could not be the least doubt that Joan was scolding violently, and even using threats of personal violence, to the lass, who, half in sorrow, but more than half in anger, was sobbing in the background. The very sound of her foot and its rapid tap upon the floor, was angry, and scolded too. He paused, and a look of alarm came over his face. The Joscelyns were known for hot tempers all over the county. Ralph Joscelyn was a man whom people avoided any sort of argument with on this account, and all his sons shared, more or less, his disposition. What if Joan shared it too? It was alarming to a man bent on the special errand which had brought Selby here. Perhaps the doubt was not romantic, but, on the whole, neither was the errand. If she should say to him, “Get out of my sight!” if she should threaten to “take her hands” to him in any domestic difficulty, it would not be agreeable. He stopped short in the yard, where old Simon was cleaning his milk-pails; through the dairy window the milk-bowls were visible, ranged in perfect order, and a glimpse of Joan’s trim substantial figure, passing and re-passing, with no sort of languor about her, such as is supposed to encourage love. The would-be lover had a visible movement of doubt. He caught old Simon’s eye and blushed, though he had long supposed himself to be past blushing, and gave an uneasy laugh, which sounded shy, though it was twenty years, Mr. Selby thought, since he knew what the word meant. Old Simon was a man with a very wandering eye, an eye to be spoken of in strict correctness in the singular number. One of them he always kept upon his work, the other moved about, finding out everything that was unwilling to be seen; this time he perceived Mr. Selby’s sentiment at the first glance.

“Ye needn’t be feared,” he said, taking one hand from his pail to wave it in the direction of the dairy, “ye needn’t be feared. She’s not a lass to be feared for, our Miss Joan. Her bark’s worse than her bite. Bless you, not the hundredth part of that she don’t mean.”

Philip Selby felt more alarmed still. That a woman should scold when she meant it, that was supportable; but when she scolded, not meaning it, that indeed was something to be frightened for. The smile upon his mouth became a nervous one. He faltered in spite of himself.

“Lord!” said old Simon, turning his head aside, “six feet high, and na mair heart than that. Is that what ye ca’ a man?”

“Hist!” said Selby, beckoning him close; he had half-a-crown between his finger and thumb, “is that, now, a thing that happens very often? Tell me the truth, and I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Terrible often,” said Simon, with a grin of derision, “most days—and twa or three times a day.”

“And how do you manage to live with her?” said the panic-stricken suitor.

“We cannot bide her out of our sight,” said Simon, his grin growing more and more disdainful, “naething goes right when she’s—away. You may make what you like out o’ that. It’s what they ca’ a paradox at the night school.”

And he went off clashing his pails against each other in a manner which caught Joan’s keen ear, as she paused for a moment before the open window. “What are you doing with those pails?” she said; “have all the folk about the town gone out of their wits to day? Do you not know, Simon, that you started all the hoops last summer, and brought us in a bill as long as my arm? Bless me, can nothing be done right in this house, unless I put to my own hand, and do it myself?”

“Hear to her!” said Simon, tranquilly, taking no other notice of this energetic address, “you can see for yourself. She’s often like that, less or more.”

At this moment there came the sound of a laugh from within. “It’s Mr. Selby, I declare,” said Joan, “to see the dairy! and all in such disorder, ye lazy, big, soft——I told you I would let nobody in unless we were tidied up, and we’re not tidied up, not a bit; but you’ll have to come in, I suppose, as you’re here. Step in; we must not grudge the welcome, since it’s all you’re likely to get. I’m in a passion; that’s the fact,” said Joan, with a laugh, “I’m raging like a bull of Bashan. You heard me as you were coming through the yard, I make no doubt; and that’s how I have to go on very near every day.”

“Oh no, Miss Joan!” said the lass who had been bearing the brunt of the storm; and Selby, looking round, saw that this aggrieved personage was grinning from ear to ear.

“That’s just your deception,” said Joan, “that’s trying to get at my weak side. When they get a laugh out of me, they think no more about it; and it’s far too easy,” Joan added, shaking her head with comical distress, “to get a laugh out of me, far too easy; but don’t you think it’s fun, for I am as serious as I can be,” she cried, turning round upon the culprit, who flew to her work with an alacrity which showed Joan’s admonition to be not without effect, though she was cramming her apron into her mouth all the time, that she might not laugh. Joan took Selby all over the dairy, and showed him everything. She was an enthusiast in all that concerned this portion of rural work. She took him out to the fields behind the house afterwards to see her pet cows. It was a breezy spring day, the sun shining, but the wind blowing, and cold though sunny. Joan went out with the light shining in her trim and smooth brown hair, and without a thought even of a shawl. “Cold? oh no, I’m not cold,” she said, “I don’t trouble hats much, if it is not in the height of summer, when you can really say there’s something like a sun. This doesn’t count; there is no headache in it,” said Joan, looking affectionately at the temperate ruler of the day, who makes no unnecessary show in the North. “But you might catch cold,” suggested the middle-aged lover. “Bless us,” said Joan, “me catch cold! why, such a thing was never thought of; I’ve seen a fuss made about Harry for taking cold; but never me. The air on the Fells never gives cold. It is your fat damp air in the level, it’s not our hill air that ever does any harm.”

“I am trying to think that, too. I am tired wandering about the world with a regiment of navvies,” said Selby; “I’m thinking of settling down.”

“That’s not a bad thing to do; but you must have led a cheery life roaming about the world as you say. I don’t know that I would like it myself; but change is lightsome. You must have seen a deal in your day,” said Joan, looking at her companion. And as she did so she could not but allow that he was a very “wise-like man.” It would be difficult to give in other words the full force of this phrase. It does not mean good-looking, or respectable, or tall, or wealthy, or well-dressed, or well-mannered, but it means all of these together. And Philip Selby was a little more—he was really handsome, though he was no longer young.

“I have seen a great deal in my day,” he said, “and my day has been a good long one, for I’ve been afloat upon the world for more than twenty years; but I don’t know that I ever saw anything so much to my mind as I see to-day—a fine, breezy hillside, and fine cattle, and a thriving country, not to say somebody by my side that——”

“Oh, you need not reckon me,” said Joan; “there’s women in all countries. It’s a great pity there’s so many of us; we would be a great deal more thought of if there were but a few.”

“Perhaps you would be angry,” said Selby, “if I said there were not many like Miss Joan Joscelyn, wherever a man may go.”

“Oh, no, far from angry,” said Joan, with a laugh. “I should think it was a very nice compliment; compliments are not common things in our parts. You that have been about the world you know how to flatter country folk—but among the Fells they’re but little known. Look at that beast now,” she said, stroking tenderly the face of a great, soft-eyed cow, “did you ever see a bonnier creature? There’s not a lady in all England has such a balmy breath. And she’s better than she’s bonnie. She’s a small fortune to us. And that little thing, that’s one from France, of the Brittany kind, small feeders and good milkers; that belongs to our little Liddy. You have never seen Liddy, Mr. Selby? She’s the pet of the family; and when she’s not here we make a pet of her little cow. Some are fond of Alderneys, some like this French breed. Which do you like best?”

“I have no opinion. I am no judge. I know a horse when I see one, but not a cow. I like the kind, Miss Joan, that you like best.”

“Well,” said Joan, laughing, “our tastes agree in some things. You remember that brown colt? The last time I saw him he was just what I expected—turning out a fine beast, far better than that Sister to Scythian that father set such store upon. I think you and me were right there.”

“I am sure we were right,” said Selby; “two heads are better than one. Do you know, Miss Joan, I think our tastes are very likely to agree. I have been to see Heatonshaw—which was the place you said you would dearly like yourself.”

“Did I say I would dearly like it? That was strong. But it’s a bonnie place, there is little doubt of that.”

“I think it is a sweet place; and a house that would just do for——I’ve something more to say to you, Miss Joan, if you will have the patience to listen. A wandering life is very pleasant for a time, but as a man gets on in years he wants to settle down. But,” said Selby, lifting his hand to stop her, for she was just about to interrupt him—and putting a great emphasis upon the word, “but—not by himself. He must have somebody to settle down with him, or it’s no settling at all.”

“That’s true,” said Joan, with great external sobriety, though the demon of laughter with which she had fought so severe a battle during their last interview had sprung again into life within her, “That’s very true. You’ll have to get a wife; but you cannot be at much loss about that, Mr. Selby, for women are plenty—more’s the pity. There’s no place you can go but you’ll find them in dozens. Men are real well off nowadays, they have nothing to do but to pick and choose.”

“That would be very nice if anyone would do,” said Selby, with a countenance the gravity of which contrasted strangely with the twinkle in Joan’s eye and the quiver about the corner of her mouth, “but I should not be content to pick and choose. The thing is, there is only one that I want. If I cannot get her, another will not serve my purpose, which is what you seem to think. Miss Joan, I know yours is a fine old family, much above mine, though the Selbys have always been respectable. You may think it presumptuous in me to ask you, but to tell the plain truth it’s you I want.”

“Me you want?” she cried, a little confused—for though she had seen what was coming, and had been quite prepared to make a joke of it, and even now scarcely dared to meet his eye lest she should laugh, the seriousness of the actual proposal bewildered her a little when it was made. She did not think it would have been half such a serious business. Joan, though she was not shy, and had treated the whole matter as a great joke up to this moment, cast down her eyes in spite of herself, and was confused, and for a moment did not know what to say.

“It’s just you I want,” said Selby; “you are the one I’ve had my eye on since ever I came into the Fell-country. When first I saw your face, I said to myself, ‘That’s the woman for me.’ You see, I was on the look out,” he added, with a smile. “I have put by a little money, and I had some from those that went before me. There’s enough to be comfortable upon, especially if the wife had a little of her own. And neither you nor me would like to be idle. You could set up your dairy, with all the last improvements, at Heatonshaw, and there would be plenty for me to do on the farm. I think we could make a very good thing out of it, and yet keep up a very pleasant position. I would never be against seeing friends, and you would have no need to exert yourself, but only to be the head of everything, and keep all going. I could see my way to a neat little carriage for you, or even a riding horse if you would like that—and as to allowances and so forth, even if you had nothing of your own——”

“I’m thinking you’re going too fast, Mr. Selby,” said Joan. The laughing spirit was exorcised. She no longer felt any inclination to burst forth into that fou rire which comes at the most inappropriate moments. He had sobered her by his own perfect sobriety. Joan felt that this was a grave business affair, and not a frivolous piece of nonsense inappropriate to her serious years. Some lingering wish, perhaps, to hear a real love tale in her own person had been lurking in her mind along with the certainty that she would laugh at it if it were told. And many ludicrous pictures had come before her when she first espied Mr. Selby’s “intentions.” She had wondered, with a comical mixture of inexperienced faith and cynicism, whether he would go down on his knees and call her by all sorts of endearing names. She was bursting with laughter at the sentimental personage who intended to make a divinity of Joan Joscelyn. Nevertheless, perhaps, she was a little conscious, secretly and underneath all, though she never acknowledged it to herself, that this was the way in which a woman had a right to be addressed once in her life—Joan Joscelyn as well as another. But that was a very great secret, and deep down; so deep that she had never confessed it even to herself. And now she was out in all her calculations, and there was nothing sentimental to laugh at. It was a very sensible sort of bargain that was proposed to her, and she did not know where to find a word against it. Her laugh came to an entire end. “I’m thinking,” she said, “that you’re going too fast.”

“It lies with you to say that,” said Selby; “but, Joan, remember” (he had given up the Miss, and she perceived it), “that what I am saying I’m ready to do, and it’s only for you to say the word. I’ve thought of it since ever I saw you. ‘That’s the woman for me,’ I said, and you know how we agreed about the colt. We agree, too, about the place. I went to look at it because you said you would like it, and I like it, too. And we’re both partial to the same kind of life. If we couldn’t get on together I don’t know who should. And in everything else I’ll do whatever you please.”

“You miss out one thing, Mr. Selby,” said Joan, “we ought to be partial to each other as well as to the kind of life.”

“Well, I am,” said Selby, fervently; “that’s the truth. I can’t speak for you; but I am. I’m partial to your looks and your ways, and everything about you. I like the way you sit still and knit, and I like you in your dairy and out here. You’re just all I want as far as I can see. I like you when you’re scolding. I was a little bit frightened at first; but afterwards I liked that as well as the rest.”

“Well, you’re a bold man to be partial to a woman when she’s scolding,” said Joan, a little mollified; “but I don’t know much about you, Mr. Selby, and I can’t say I’m partial to you.”

“That’s because you don’t know me,” he said promptly; “make as many inquiries as you like, I am not afraid of them. You’ll find I have a good character wherever I’ve been. I don’t see why I shouldn’t make you happy as well as another. I’ve nothing behind me that I’m ashamed of. You and I at Heatonshaw, with plenty of beasts in the stables, and the house furnished to please you, and a bit of a phaeton in the coach-house: I don’t see why we mightn’t be very snug together,” he said, and as he spoke he took Joan’s hand, which, though a little red in the fingers and brown on the back, was a shapely hand notwithstanding all her work. Then she was seized all at once, and without warning, with that fou rire.

“If you mean courting, Mr. Selby, it’s a bit public here,” she said, discharging a load from her breast in that peal of laughter. He was a little offended for the moment; but then he comforted himself that laughing was near to crying, and that crying would have been a very good sign indeed. At his age he had a little experience more than falls to the lot of a youth at the ordinary love-making age.

“I hope you’re not just laughing at me, Joan.”

“I’m laughing at myself as well—and at you too. I’m old to have a lad, and I never looked for such a thing—and you’re old,” Joan added. “I think you’re too old for me.”

“I am forty-one; which is not a bad age. Just suitable, I think,” he said.

Then she looked at him again with the laughter in her eyes. He was a very “wiselike” man—nothing to be ashamed at, whoever saw him—very good-looking indeed; more satisfactory in that way than Joan felt herself to be. And Heatonshaw was a pretty place; and a house all of her own was better than a house in which her father might interfere arbitrarily every day, or even her mother change all the arrangements some fine morning in a fit of absence or compunction. She turned round and began to walk towards the house, suddenly becoming serious. Selby turned too and walked with her. He did not say a word as they went over the fields and through the garden of the White House, but waited her pleasure in a deferential way which went to Joan’s heart. But she was not “partial” to him. “We can talk of this some other time” was all that she said.