early as bad as your
brother, begad!'

'Perhaps I am--yes--perhaps I am!'

'That I should father such a harum-scarum brood!'

'It is very bad; but Nicholas--'

'He's a scoundrel!'

'He is not a scoundrel!' cried she, turning quickly. 'He's as good and
worthy as you or I, or anybody bearing our name, or any nobleman in the
kingdom, if you come to that! Only--only'--she could not continue the
argument on those lines. 'Now, father, listen!' she sobbed; 'if you
taunt me I'll go off and join him at his farm this very day, and marry
him to-morrow, that's what I'll do!'

'I don't taant ye!'

'I wish to avoid unseemliness as much as you.'

She went away. When she came back a quarter of an hour later, thinking
to find the room empty, he was standing there as before, never having
apparently moved. His manner had quite changed. He seemed to take a
resigned and entirely different view of circumstances.

'Christine, here's a paragraph in the paper hinting at a secret wedding,
and I'm blazed if it don't point to you. Well, since this was to happen,
I'll bear it, and not complain. All volk have crosses, and this is one
of mine. Now, this is what I've got to say--I feel that you must carry
out this attempt at marrying Nicholas Long. Faith, you must! The rumour
will become a scandal if you don't--that's my view. I have tried to look
at the brightest side of the case. Nicholas Long is a young man superior
to most of his class, and fairly presentable. And he's not poor--at
least his uncle is not. I believe the old muddler could buy me up any
day. However, a farmer's wife you must be, as far as I can see. As
you've made your bed, so ye must lie. Parents propose, and ungrateful
children dispose. You shall marry him, and immediately.'

Christine hardly knew what to make of this. 'He is quite willing to
wait, and so am I. We can wait for two or three years, and then he will
be as worthy as--'

'You must marry him. And the sooner the better, if 'tis to be done at
all . . . And yet I did wish you could have been Jim Bellston's wife. I
did wish it! But no.'

'I, too, wished it and do still, in one sense,' she returned gently. His
moderation had won her out of her defiant mood, and she was willing to
reason with him.

'You do?' he said surprised.

'I see that in a worldly sense my conduct with Mr. Long may be considered
a mistake.'

'H'm--I am glad to hear that--after my death you may see it more clear