stupes we must be to go on so!" he cried, with a couple
of bright guineas in his hand. "Mary hath not had a new frock even,
going on now for a year and a half. Sophy, it is enough to turn a
maid into thinking of any sort of mischief. Take you these and make
everything right. I was saving them up for her birthday, but maybe
another will turn up by that. My dear, you take them, and never be
afeared."

"Stephen, you may leave them, if you like. I shall not be in any haste
to let them go. Either give them to the lass yourself, or leave it to me
purely. She shall not have a sixpence, unless it is deserved."

"Of course I leave it in your hands, wife. I never come between you and
your children. But young folk go piping always after money now; and even
our Mary might be turning sad without it."

He hastened off again, without hearing any more; for he knew that some
hours of strong labor were before him, and to meet them with a heavy
heart would be almost a new thing for him. Some time ago he had begun
to hold the plough of heaviness, through the difficult looseness of
Willie's staple, and the sudden maritime slope of Jack; yet he held on
steadily through all this, with the strength of homely courage. But if
in the pride of his heart, his Mary, he should find no better than a
crooked furrow, then truly the labor of his latter days would be the
dull round of a mill horse.

Now Mary, in total ignorance of that council held concerning her, and
even of her mother's bad suspicions, chanced to come in at the front
porch door soon after her father set off to his meadows by way of the
back yard. Having been hard at work among her flowers, she was come to
get a cupful of milk for herself, and the cheery content and general
goodwill encouraged by the gardener's gentle craft were smiling on her
rosy lips and sparkling in her eyes. Her dress was as plain as plain
could be--a lavender twill cut and fitted by herself--and there was not
an ornament about her that came from any other hand than Nature's. But
simple grace of movement and light elegance of figure, fair curves of
gentle face and loving kindness of expression, gladdened with the hope
of youth--what did these want with smart dresses, golden brooches, and
two guineas? Her mother almost thought of this when she called Mary into
the little parlor. And the two guineas lay upon the table.

"Mary, can you spare a little time to talk with me? You seem wonderfully
busy, as usual."