be, and refused to kiss it.

At Mehetabel's request he came up to see her, in her room; he stood
aloof, and showed no token of kindliness and consideration. Sarah
went downstairs.

"Jonas," said the young mother, "I have wished to have a word with
you. You have been very much engaged, I suppose, and could not well
spare time to see me before."

"Well, what have you to say? Come to the point."

"That is easily done. Let all be well between us. Let the past be
forgotten, with its differences and misunderstandings. And now
that this little baby is given to us, let it be a bond of love
and reconciliation, and a promise of happiness to us both."

The Broom-Squire looked sideways at his wife, and said, sulkily,
"You remind one of Sanna Verstage's story of Gilly Cheel. He'd
been drinking and making a racket in the house, and was so
troublesome that she had to turn him out into the street by the
shoulders. What did he do, but set his back to the door, and kick
with his heels till he'd stove in some of the panels. Then he went
to the windows, and beat in the panes, and when he'd made a fine
wreck of it all, he stuck in his head, and said, 'This is to tell
you, Sanna Verstage, as how I forgive you in a Christian spirit.'"

"Bideabout! What has that to do with me?"

"Everything. Have you not wronged me, sought to compass my death,
given your love away from me to another, crossed me in all my
wishes?"

"No, Jonas; I have done none of this. I never sought your death,
only the removal of one who made happiness to me in my home
impossible. It was for you, because of you, that I desired his
removal. As for my love, I have tried to give it all to you, but
you must not forget that already from infancy, from the first
moment that I can remember anything, Iver was my companion, that
I was taught to look up to him, and to love him. But, indeed, I
needed no teachin' in that. It came naturally, just as the
buttercups in the meadow in spring, and the blush on the heather
in July. I had not seen him for many years, and I did not forget
him for all that. But I never had a thought of him other than as
an old playmate. He returned home, the very day we were married,
Jonas, as you remember. And since then, he often came to the
Punch-Bowl. You had nothin' against that. I began to feel like the
meadow when the fresh spring sun shines on it, that all the dead
or sleepin' roots woke up, and are strong again, or as the heather,
that seemed d