son. The son was a fine looking young man of three or four and twenty,
who had about three years before married a farmer's daughter, and had
lost her at the birth of her second child. There he stood, almost as
bashful as Stead himself could have been under the circumstances, while
his father paid the astonished Patience the compliment of declaring that
they had put their heads together, and made up their minds that there
was no wench in those parts so like to be a good mother to the babes,
nor so thrifty a housewife as she; and, that, though there were plenty
of maids to be had who could bring something in their hands, her ways
were better than any portion she could bring.

It really was a splendid offer. The position of miller's wife was very
prosperous, and the Lucks were highly respected. The old miller was good
and kindly, Andrew Luck the steadiest of young men, and though not seen
to much advantage as he stood sheepishly moving from leg to leg, he
was a very fine, tall, handsome youth, with a certain sweetness and
wistfulness in his countenance. Patience had no scruples about previous
love and courtship. That was not the point as she answered--

"Thank you, Master Luck, you are very good; but I cannot leave my
brothers."

"Let the big one get a wife of his own then," and, as Patience shook her
head, and glanced at where Ben, shy of strangers, was cutting rushes,
"and if you be tender on the young one, there would be work for him
about the place. I know you have been a good mother to him, you'd be
the same to our little ones. Come, Andrew, can't ye say a word for
yourself?"

"Come, Patience, do 'ee come!" pleaded poor Andrew, and the tears even
sprang to his eyes. "I'd be very good to thee, and I know thou would'st
be to my poor babes."

Patience's heart really warmed to him, and still more to the babes, but
she could only hold out.

"You must find another," she said.

"Come, you need not be coy, my lass," said the old miller. "You'll not
get a better offer, and Andrew has no time nor heart either for running
about courting. What he wants is a good wife to cheer him up, and see to
the poor little children."

It was powerful pleading, and Patience felt it.

"Aye, Master Miller," she said, "but you see I'm bound not to leave
Steadfast till he is married. He could not get on no ways without me."

"Then why--a plague on it--don't he wed and have done with it?"

"He cannot," said Patience, "till he has mad