ttle
pocket edition of him."

"So I've heard others say. Caan't see it at all myself. Look at the eyes
of un."

"Will believes the boy has got very unusual intelligence and may go
far."

"May go so far as the workhouse," she answered, with a laugh. Then,
observing that her reply pained Martin, Chris snatched up small Tim as
he passed by and pressed him to her breast and kissed him.

"You like him better than you think, Chris--poor little motherless
thing."

"Perhaps I do. I wonder if his mother ever looks hungry towards Newtake
when she passes by?"

"Perhaps others took him and told the mother that he was dead."

"She's dead herself more like. Else the thing wouldn't have falled out."

There was a pause, then Martin talked of various matters. But he could
not fight for long against the desire of his heart and presently
plunged, as he had done five years before, into a proposal.

"He being gone--poor Clem--do you think--? Have you thought, I mean? Has
it made a difference, Chris? 'T is so hard to put it into words without
sounding brutal and callous. Only men are selfish when they love."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

A sudden inspiration prompted his reply. He said nothing for a moment,
but with a hand that shook somewhat, drew forth his pocketbook, opened
it, fumbled within, and then handed over to Chris the brown ruins of
flowers long dead.

"You picked them," he said slowly; "you picked them long ago and flung
them away from you when you said 'No' to me--said it so kindly in the
past. Take them in your hand again."

"Dead bluebells," she answered. "Ess, I can call home the time. To think
you gathered them up!" She looked at him with something not unlike love
in her eyes and fingered the flowers gently. "You'm a gude man, Martin
--the husband for a gude lass. Best to find one if you can. Wish I could
help'e."

"Oh, Chris, there's only one woman in the world for me. Could you--even
now? Could you let me stand between you and the world? Could you, Chris?
If you only knew what I cannot put into words. I'd try so hard to make
you happy."

"I knaw, I knaw. But theer's no human life so long as the road to
happiness, Martin. And yet--"

He took her hand and for a moment she did not resist him. Then little
Tim's voice chimed out merrily at the stream margin, and the music had
instant effect upon Chris Blanchard.

She drew her hand from Martin and the next moment he saw his dead
bluebells hurrying awa