felt I was too poor----"

Her hand stole through his arm.

"Too poor, Angus! Am I not poor also?"

"Not as poor as I am," he answered, promptly possessing himself of the
caressing hand. "In fact, you're quite rich compared to me. You've got a
house, and you've got work, which brings you in enough to live
upon,--now I haven't a roof to call my own, and my stock of money is
rapidly coming to an end. I've nothing to depend upon but my book,--and
if I can't sell that when it's finished, where am I? I'm nothing but a
beggar--less well off than I was as a wee boy when I herded cattle. And
I'm not going to marry you----"

She stopped in her walk and looked at him with a smile.

"Oh Angus! I thought you were!"

He kissed the hand he held.

"Don't make fun of me, Mary! I won't allow it! I _am_ going to marry
you!--but I'm _not_ going to marry you till I've sold my book. I don't
suppose I'll get more than a hundred pounds for it, but that will do to
start housekeeping together on. Won't it?"

"I should think it would indeed!" and she lifted her head with quite a
proud gesture--"It will be a fortune!"

"Of course," he went on, "the cottage is yours, and all that is in it. I
can't add much to that, because to my mind, it's just perfect. I never
want any sweeter, prettier little home. But I want to work _for_ you,
Mary, so that you'll not have to work for yourself, you understand?"

She nodded her head gravely.

"I understand! You want me to sit with my hands folded in my lap, doing
nothing at all, and getting lazy and bad-tempered."

"Now you know I don't!" he expostulated.

"Yes, you do, Angus! If you don't want me to work, you want me to be a
perfectly useless and tiresome woman! Why, my dearest, now that you love
me, I should like to work all the harder! If you think the cottage
pretty, I shall try to make it even prettier. And I don't want to give
up all my lace-mending. It's just as pleasant and interesting as the
fancy-work which the rich ladies play with You must really let me go on
working, Angus! I shall be a perfectly unbearable person if you don't!"

She looked so sweetly at him, that as they were at the moment passing
under the convenient shadow of a tree he took her in his arms and kissed
her.

"When _you_ become a perfectly unbearable person," he said, "then it
will be time for another deluge, and a general renovation of human kind.
You shall work if you like, my Mary, but you shall not work for _me