that steadfast concentration which means
purpose and not pleasure. He was soon near enough to see that she was
Marty South. Click, click, click went the pattens; and she did not
turn her head.

She had, however, become aware before this that the driver of the
approaching gig was Giles. She had shrunk from being overtaken by him
thus; but as it was inevitable, she had braced herself up for his
inspection by closing her lips so as to make her mouth quite
unemotional, and by throwing an additional firmness into her tread.

"Why do you wear pattens, Marty? The turnpike is clean enough, although
the lanes are muddy."

"They save my boots."

"But twelve miles in pattens--'twill twist your feet off. Come, get up
and ride with me."

She hesitated, removed her pattens, knocked the gravel out of them
against the wheel, and mounted in front of the nodding specimen
apple-tree. She had so arranged her bonnet with a full border and
trimmings that her lack of long hair did not much injure her
appearance; though Giles, of course, saw that it was gone, and may have
guessed her motive in parting with it, such sales, though infrequent,
being not unheard of in that locality.

But nature's adornment was still hard by--in fact, within two feet of
him, though he did not know it. In Marty's basket was a brown paper
packet, and in the packet the chestnut locks, which, by reason of the
barber's request for secrecy, she had not ventured to intrust to other
hands.

Giles asked, with some hesitation, how her father was getting on.

He was better, she said; he would be able to work in a day or two; he
would be quite well but for his craze about the tree falling on him.

"You know why I don't ask for him so often as I might, I suppose?" said
Winterborne. "Or don't you know?"

"I think I do."

"Because of the houses?"

She nodded.

"Yes. I am afraid it may seem that my anxiety is about those houses,
which I should lose by his death, more than about him. Marty, I do feel
anxious about the houses, since half my income depends upon them; but I
do likewise care for him; and it almost seems wrong that houses should
be leased for lives, so as to lead to such mixed feelings."

"After father's death they will be Mrs. Charmond's?"

"They'll be hers."

"They are going to keep company with my hair," she thought.

Thus talking, they reached the town. By no pressure would she ride up
the street with him. "That's the right of anoth