ove, this world has grown;
Yea, widens all to be possest.
_She_--Since that I love, it narrows down
Into one little nest.

_He_.--Since that I love, I rage and burn
O'erwhelming Nineveh with Rome!
_She_.--In vain! in vain! Fond man return--
Such doings be at home!

He had reached an age to know himself in his own despite. He was no
boy, to dream of building or overthrowing empires. But he could build
his love a palace. His friend Batty Langton bore with all this energy
and smiled wisely.

Ruth guessed nothing of these preparations. But his vehemence broke
down her scruples, overbore and swept away what she had built in hours
of patient thinking. She yielded: she would be married, since he willed
it.

But the debate had been; and it left Tatty, with her maxims and
taken-for-granted practicalities, hard to endure at times.

"The outfit?" Tatty would suggest. "At this distance from civilisation
we cannot even begin to take it in hand. Yet it should be worthy of the
occasion, and men--speaking with all respect of Sir Oliver--are apt to
overlook these things. Dear Ruth, I do not know if you have thought of
returning to Sabines. . . . So much handier. . . ."

Ruth, half-wilfully, refused to think of returning to Sabines.

But if Tatty fussed, the Cordery lads made more than recompense for her
fussing. From the hour when, at supper-time, Sir Oliver led Miss
Josselin into the kitchen, his bride affianced, all discord ceased
between these young men. He was their master and patron, and they
thenceforth were her servants only--her equal champions should
occasion ever be given.

Thenceforth too, and until the hour when at nightfall she drove away
from Sweetwater Farm, she was their goddess: and as, while Phoebus
served shepherd to Admetus, his fellow swains noted that never had
harvest been so heavy or life so full of sweet and healthy rivalries, so
these young men, who but once or twice saw Ruth Josselin after the hour
of her departure, talked in scattered homesteads all their days of that
good time at Sweetwater, and of the season's wonderful bearings.
Undoubtedly the winter was a genial one--so genial that scarcely a day
denied Ruth a bracing ride: the spring that followed seemed to rain and
shine almost in obedience to Farmer Cordery's evening prayer (and it
never left the Almighty in doubt of his exact wishes). Summer came, and
the young men, emulous but no longer bi