, "is that I have so little to offer
them. It's a poor place, and I'm almost afraid, Sally, that I'm rather
a poor farmer. As you have once or twice pointed out, I don't stay
with things. Still, it might be different if there was any particular
reason why I should."

He rose, and crossing the room, stood close beside her chair. "Sally,"
he added, "would you be afraid to take hold and see what you could make
of the place and me? Perhaps you could make something, though it would
probably be very hard work, my dear."

The blood surged into the girl's face, and she looked up at him with
open triumph in her eyes. It was her hour, and Sally, as it happened,
was not afraid of anything.

"Oh!" she said; "you really want me?"

"Yes," said Hawtrey quietly; "I think I have wanted you for ever so
long, though I did not know it until lately."

"Then," she said, "I'll do what I can, Gregory."

Hawtrey bent his head and kissed her with a deference he had not
expected to feel, for there was something in the girl's simplicity and
the completeness of her surrender which, though the thing seemed
astonishing, laid a restraint on him. Then, as he sat down on the arm
of her chair with a hand upon her shoulder, he was more astonished
still, for she quietly made it clear that she expected a good deal from
him. For one thing, he realised that she meant him to take and keep a
foremost place among his neighbours, and, though Sally had not the gift
of clear and imaginative expression, it became apparent that this was
less for her own sake than his. She was, with somewhat crude
forcefulness, trying to rouse a sense of responsibility in the man, to
incite him to resolute action and wholesome restraint, and, as he
remembered what he had hitherto thought of her, a salutary sense of
confusion crept upon him.

She seemed to recognise it, for at length she glanced up at him sharply.

"What is it, Gregory? Why do you look at me like that?" she asked.

Hawtrey smiled in a rather curious fashion. Hitherto she had made her
appeal through his senses to one side of his nature only. There was no
doubt on that point, but now it seemed there were in her qualities he
had never suspected. She had desired him as a husband, but it was
becoming clear that she would not be content with the mere possession
of him. Sally, it seemed, had wider ideas in her mind, and, though the
thing seemed almost ludicrous, she wanted to be proud of him.

"My de