ohn Broughton--ay, in love, to the full and entire loss of
her whole heart.

On one evening she was so sitting till the July sun had fallen and
hidden himself for the night, when her father came upon her as he
returned from one of his rambles on the moor. 'Patty,' he said, 'you
are always sitting there now. Is it not late? Will you not be cold?'

'No papa,' she said, 'I shall not be cold.'

'But won't you come to the house? I miss you when you come in so late
that there's no time to say a word before we go to bed.'

She got up and followed him into the parsonage, and when they were in
the sitting-room together, and the door was closed, she came up to him
and kissed him. 'Papa,' she said, 'would it make you very unhappy if I
were to leave you?'

'Leave me!' he said, startled by the serious and almost solemn tone of
her voice. 'Do you mean for always?'

'If I were to marry, papa?'

'Oh, marry! No; that would not make me unhappy. It would make me very
happy, Patty, to see you married to a man you would love;--very, very
happy; though my days would be desolate without you.'

'That is it, papa. What would you do if I went from you?'

'What would it matter, Patty? I should be free, at any rate, from a
load which often presses heavy on me now. What will you do when I shall
leave you? A few more years and all will be over with me. But who is it,
love? Has anybody said anything to you?'

'It was only an idea, papa. I don't often think of such a thing; but I
did think of it then.' And so the subject was allowed to pass by. This
had happened before the day of the second arrival had been absolutely
fixed and made known to Miss Woolsworthy.

And then that second arrival took place. The reader may have understood
from the words with which Miss Le Smyrger authorized her nephew to make
his second visit to Oxney Colne that Miss Woolsworthy's passion was not
altogether unauthorized. Captain Broughton had been told that he was not
to come unless he came with a certain purpose; and having been so told,
he still persisted in coming. There can be no doubt but that he well
understood the purport to which his aunt alluded. 'I shall assuredly
come,' he had said. And true to his word, he was now there.

Patience knew exactly the hour at which he must arrive at the station at
Newton Abbot, and the time also which it would take to travel over those
twelve up-hill miles from the station to Oxney. It need hardly be said
that she paid n