his brow a little clearer, but not quite clear
yet.

"She _is_ pleased. She ain't making believe a mite. She's like most
women folks in _that_," said Mr Snow, emphasising to himself the word,
as though, in a good many things, she differed from "women folk" in
general. "They really do think in their hearts, though they don't
always say so, that it is the right thing for girls to get married, and
she's glad Graeme's going to do so well. But, when she comes to think
of it, and how few chances there are of her ever seeing much of her
again, I am afraid she'll worry about it--though she sartain don't look
like it now."

Certainly she did not. The grave face looked more than peaceful, it
looked bright. The news which both Rose and Will had intimated, rather
than announced, had stirred only pleasant thoughts as yet, that was
clear. Mr Snow put on his spectacles and looked at the letters again,
then putting them down, said, gravely,--

"She'll have her home a great way off from here. And maybe it's
foolish, but it does seem to me as though it was a kind of a come down,
to go back to the old country to live after all these years."

Mrs Snow laughed heartily.

"But then, it is no' to be supposed that she will think so, or he
either, you ken."

"No, it ain't. If they did, they'd stay here, I suppose."

"Well, it's no' beyond the bounds of possibility, but they may bide here
or come back again. But, whether they bide here or bide there, God
bless them both," said Mrs Snow, with moistening eyes.

"God bless them both!" echoed her husband. "And, which ever way it is,
you ain't going to worry the least mite about it. Be you?"

The question was asked after a pause of several seconds, and Mr Snow
looked so wistfully and entreatingly into his wife's face, that she
could not help laughing, though there were tears in her eyes.

"No, I am no thinking of worrying, as you call it. It is borne in upon
me that this change is to be for the real happiness of my bairn, and it
would be pitiful in me to grudge her a day of it. And, to tell you the
truth, I have seen it coming, and have been preparing myself for it this
while back, and so I have taken it more reasonably than you have done
yourself, which is a thing that wasna to be expected, I must confess."

"Seen it coming! Preparing for it!" repeated Mr Snow; but he inquired
no farther, only looked meditatively out of the window, and nodded his
head a great many times.