ust
get back to it. But if so I will put a note in your prayer-book in
the church. So you had best look in there on your way up on
Wednesday evening.

'I am taking this way of seeing you because I don't want there to be
any unpleasantness for you if you are tired of me or like some other
chap better.

'I mean to take a wife back with me, Mattie, for I have done well,
and can afford to keep one in better style than ever your father
kept his. Will you be her, dear? So no more at present from your
affectionate friend and lover,

JACK HALIBUT.'

I am quicker at reading writing than Mattie, and I had finished the
letter and was picking up the raspberries before she come to the
end, where his name was signed with all the little crosses round it.

'Well?' says I, as she folded it up and unbuttoned two buttons of
her dress to push it inside. 'Well,' says I, 'what's the best news?'

'He's come home again,' she says. And I give you my word she did
look like a rose as she said it. 'He's come home again, Jane, and
it's all right, and he likes me just as much as ever he did, God
bless him.'

Not a word, you see, about his having made his fortune, which I
might never have known if I hadn't read the letter which I did,
acting for the best. Not that I think it was deceitfulness in the
girl, but a sort of fondness that always kept her from noticing
really important things.

'And does he ask you to have him?' says I.

'Of course he does,' she says; 'I never thought any different. I
never thought but what he would come back for me, just as he said he
would--just as he has.'

By that I knew well enough that she had often had her doubts.

'Oh, well!' says I, 'all's well that ends well.

I hope he's made enough to satisfy uncle--that's all.'

'Oh yes, I think so,' says Mattie, hardly understanding what I was
saying. 'I didn't notice particular. But I suppose that's all
right.'

She didn't notice particular! Now, I put it to you, Was that the
sort of girl to be the wife of a man who had got on like Jack had? I
for one didn't think so. If she didn't care for money why should she
have it, when there was plenty that did? And if love in a cottage
was what she wanted, and kisses and foolishness out of poetry-books,
I suppose one man's pretty much as good as another for that sort of
thing.

So I said, 'Come along in, dear, and we will get along with the
jam-making, and talk it all over nicely. I'm so glad he's come back.
I al