d a certain belief
that before that walk was done Master Teddy would ask her a vital
question.

He came, and they went along beside the river, where the wild cherry's
leaves fell blood red on the water, and where the hanging woods flamed in
afternoon sunshine and made a brave glow. For Dart at autumn time is a
fine sight, and the beauty of the scene and the blue of the distant, clear
and still beyond all that crimson and gold, tuned Christie to a melting
mood. She loved the sailor man very well indeed by now, and knew he loved
her; and his calm manner and honest opinions, reposeful sort of nature and
unconscious strength won her all the way. For his part he'd never met a
girl like her in his travels, and being now twenty-six and wishful to wed,
felt that he'd be a very fortunate man to have such a wife as she promised
to make. He'd got his eye on a nice little house at St. Helier's, where
his relations dwelt, and he'd learned from Christie that she'd be well
pleased to dwell there, or anywhere, out of sight and sound of her uncle
and aunt Fox. So, when he put the question, she answered it in a way to
bring his arms round her and his lips on hers. And though autumn was in
the air, spring was in their hearts, no doubt, and they talked the usual
hopeful talk, and dreamed the usual cheerful dreams, and knew themselves
to be the happiest man and woman walking earth at that particular moment.

Nothing would do, but that Master Ted went off that instant to tell Jimmy
Fox the news, and though Christie warned him that her uncle had very
different ideas for her, he said, truly enough, that in these cases it was
the woman's view of a husband and not her uncle's that ought to count.

But Jimmy very soon showed he wasn't going to take Ted, and had no manner
of use for him. In fact, he let go pretty hot, and told Edmund Masters
that the likes of him--a sea-faring man with a wife in every port, no
doubt--wasn't going to have Christie. He blustered and he bullied and he
insulted the young man shocking: but the sailor kept his temper very well,
and the quieter he was the fiercer old man Jimmy got. And Polly Fox wasn't
no better. She spit out her temper on Christie, and wanted to know how a
girl, brought up with the fear of God in her eyes, could think twice of a
common seafarer.

So seeing they were beyond reason, Masters took up his cap, and left.

"Keep your nerve, my gal," he said to Christie, "and bide my time. Let 'em
see we me