ming you--that's the blessing I'd beg for in
my prayers! Though you were as wild as a cat of the woods, by heaven!
I'd rather have the taming of you than go about with a leash of
quiet"--he checked himself--"companions."

Such was the sudden roll of his tongue, that she was lost in the
astounding lead he had taken, and stared.

"You're the beauty to my taste, and devil is what I want in a woman!
I can make something out of a girl with a temper like yours. You don't
know me, Miss Rhoda. I'm what you reckon a good young man. Isn't that
it?"

Robert drew up with a very hard smile.

"I would to God I were! Mind, I feel for you about your sister. I
like you the better for holding to her through thick and thin. But my
sheepishness has gone, and I tell you I'll have you whether you will or
no. I can help you and you can help me. I've lived here as if I had no
more fire in me than old Gammon snoring on his pillow up aloft; and who
kept me to it? Did you see I never touched liquor? What did you guess
from that?--that I was a mild sort of fellow? So I am: but I haven't got
that reputation in other parts. Your father 'd like me to marry you, and
I'm ready. Who kept me to work, so that I might learn to farm, and be a
man, and be able to take a wife? I came here--I'll tell you how. I was
a useless dog. I ran from home and served as a trooper. An old aunt of
mine left me a little money, which just woke me up and gave me a lift of
what conscience I had, and I bought myself out.

"I chanced to see your father's advertisement--came, looked at you all,
and liked you--brought my traps and settled among you, and lived like a
good young man. I like peace and orderliness, I find. I always thought
I did, when I was dancing like mad to hell. I know I do now, and you're
the girl to keep me to it. I've learnt that much by degrees. With any
other, I should have been playing the fool, and going my old ways, long
ago. I should have wrecked her, and drunk to forget. You're my match.
By-and-by you'll know, me yours! You never gave me, or anybody else that
I've seen, sly sidelooks.

"Come! I'll speak out now I'm at work. I thought you at some girl's
games in the Summer. You went out one day to meet a young gentleman.
Offence or no offence, I speak and you listen. You did go out. I was in
love with you then, too. I saw London had been doing its mischief. I was
down about it. I felt that he would make nothing of you, but I chose to
take the care