ut there must be another test." Then
he was silent for some time.

"I have it!" he finally exclaimed. "Jacob, you must go back for the oats
harvest. You must ask Susan to be your wife, and ask her parents to let
you have her. But,--pay attention to my words!--you must tell her that
you are a poor, hired man on this place, and that she can be engaged as
housekeeper. Don't speak of me as your father, but as the owner of
the farm. Bring her here in that belief, and let me see how honest and
willing she is. I can easily arrange matters with Harry and Sally while
you are away; and I'll only ask you to keep up the appearance of the
thing for a month or so."

"But, father,"--Jacob began.

"Not a word! Are you not willing to do that much for the sake of having
her all your life, and this farm after me? Suppose it is covered with
a mortgage, if she is all you say, you two can work it off. Not a word
more! It is no lie, after all, that you will tell her."

"I am afraid," said Jacob, "that she could not leave her home now. She
is too useful there, and the family is so poor."

"Tell them that both your wages, for the first year, shall go to them.
It'll be my business to rake and scrape the money together somehow. Say,
too, that the housekeeper's place can't be kept for her--must be filled
at once. Push matters like a man, if you mean to be a complete one, and
bring her here, if she carries no more with her than the clothes on her
back!"

During the following days Jacob had time to familiarize his mind with
this startling proposal. He knew his father's stubborn will too well
to suppose that it could be changed; but the inevitable soon converted
itself into the possible and desirable. The sweet face of Susan as she
had stood before him in the wheat-field was continually present to his
eyes, and ere long, he began to place her, in his thoughts, in the old
rooms at home, in the garden, among the thickets by the brook, and in
Ann Pardon's pleasant parlor. Enough; his father's plan became his own
long before the time was out.

On his second journey everybody seemed to be an old acquaintance and an
intimate friend. It was evening as he approached the Meadows farm, but
the younger children recognized him in the dusk, and their cry of, "Oh,
here's Jacob!" brought out the farmer and his wife and Susan, with the
heartiest of welcomes. They had all missed him, they said--even the
horses and oxen had looked for him, and they were wonder