ht; but
it's the last time. You can take me or leave me; but I'll know now
which it is to be. It don't matter much to me where you want to live,
except that, if I don't take this offer, we must wait a bit; but I'll
know your mind about it. It must be 'yes' or 'no' to-night!"

Happily for Rose, Miss Webster's bell pealed a noisy summons at that
moment.

"I can't stop, Tom! I _really_ can't! Miss Webster is not one who can
wait. I'll think it over and tell you sometime soon."

"When?" asked Tom, catching her hands and holding them so tightly that
she gave a little cry.

"Sunday. Sunday night after church; you can see me home if you like,"
and with that promise Tom had to be content.

"Mind what you are up to, Rose. Don't play with me too far," he said.

And as Rose sat stitching in the housekeeper's room that night, her
mind busied itself over Tom's words, and the difficulty of making a
decision. It had never entered Rose's pretty head to lay this question
of marriage before God. Had she done so she would have been saved from
making a mistake, which was to leave its mark upon the whole of her
future life. Her heart drew her one way, and her ambition another.
Undoubtedly Tom, with his warm heart and openly expressed devotion, was
the man she loved the best of the many who had paid her attention; but
she might have to wait for him for years, whilst, if Dixon chose to
offer it, he could give her a home to-morrow that any girl in the
village might envy; but he had never spoken out as Tom had spoken
to-night. His wooing had not been so manly and so straight as poor
Tom's. Rose had almost made up her mind to tell him on Sunday that she
would wait for him, when a voice waked her from her reverie; and the
voice was Dixon's.

"I suppose you don't happen to know if the carriage will be wanted to
take the ladies to the station to-morrow? I heard some talk about
their going out, but I haven't had any orders."

"I'm not the one to ask! you'll find Mr. Wheeler in the pantry," said
Rose, a little sharply.

"What's put you out to-night, I wonder?" said Dixon, coming a little
further into the room and closing the door behind him. "Had some
quarrel with that peppery lad Burney, I expect? Anyway you've been
crying about something; and ten to one it's Burney. I saw him coming
away from here, and I had the biggest mind to ask him what business he
had to be prowling round a place where he was turned off for
unstead