Mrs. Purcell couldn't do it. And when Aggie
said, in her solemn way, "Mother, I think it's coming; and I don't know
how to choose between them," her mother had nothing to say but:

"You must use your own judgment, my dear."

"My own judgment? I wonder if I really have any? You see, I feel as if I
liked them both about the same."

"Then just say to yourself that if you marry John Hurst you'll have a big
house in the country, and if you marry Mr. Gatty you'll have a little one
in town, and choose between the houses. That'll be easy enough."

Secretly, Mrs. Purcell was all for John Hurst, though he couldn't be
considered as exactly Aggie's equal in station. (They were always saying
how like a gentleman he looked, which showed that that was the last thing
they had expected of him. But in Queningford one does as best one can.)
For all John's merits, she was not going to force him on Aggie in as many
words. Mrs. Purcell deeply desired her daughter's happiness, and she said
to herself: "If Aggie marries either of them, and it turns out unhappily,
I don't want her to be able to say I over-persuaded her. If her poor
father were alive, _he_'d have known how to advise her."

Then, all of a sudden, without anybody's advice, John was eliminated, too.
It was not Aggie's doing. In fact, he may be said to have eliminated
himself. It happened in this way:

Mr. Hurst had been taking tea with Aggie one market-day. The others were
all out, and he had the field to himself. She always remembered just how
he looked when he did it. He was standing on the white mohair rag in the
drawing-room, and was running his fingers through his hair for the third
time. He had been telling her how he had first taken up sheep-farming in
Australia, how he'd been a farm-hand before that in California, how he'd
always set his mind on that one thing--sheep-farming--because he had been
born and bred in the Cotswolds. Aggie's dark-blue eyes were fixed on him,
serious and intent. That flattered him, and the gods, for his undoing,
dowered him with a disastrous fluency.

He had a way of thrusting out his jaw when he talked, and Aggie noted the
singular determination of his chin. It was so powerful as to be almost
brutal. (The same could certainly not be said of Mr. Gatty's.)

Then, in the light of his reminiscences, a dreadful thought came to her.

"John," she said, suddenly, "did you ever kill a pig?"

[Illustration: "'John,' she said, suddenly, 'did you