l now."

"What!"

"He has asked me to be his wife and I have promised."

"And that after all that I had said to you!"

"Aunt Emmeline, I told you that I should not drop him. I did not bid
him come here. Uncle Tom brought him. When I saw him I would have
avoided him if I could. I told him he ought not to be here because
you did not wish it; and then he answered that my uncle knew that he
was with me. Of course when he told me that he--loved me, I could
not make him any other answer." Then Aunt Emmeline expressed the
magnitude of her indignation simply by silence, and Lucy was left to
think of her lover in solitude.

* * * * * *

"And how have you fared on your day's journey?" said the Colonel,
when Hamel found him still seated on the platform with a book in his
hand.

"Much better than I thought. Sir Thomas gave me luncheon."

"And the young lady?"

"The young lady was gracious also; but I am afraid that I cannot
carry my praises of the family at Glenbogie any further. The three
Tringle ladies looked at me as I was sitting at table as though I
certainly had no business in their august society."

CHAPTER XX.

STUBBS UPON MATRIMONY.

Before that evening was over,--or in the course of the night,
it might be better said, as the two men sat up late with their
pipes,--Hamel told his friend the Colonel exactly what had taken
place that morning over at Glenbogie. "You went for the purpose, of
course?" asked the Colonel.

"For an off chance?"

"I know that well enough. I never heard of a man's walking twelve
miles to call upon a young lady merely because he knew her father;
and when there was to be a second call within a few weeks, the first
having not been taken in very good part by the young lady's friends,
my inquiring mind told me that there was something more than old
family friendship."

"Your inquiring mind saw into the truth."

"And now looks forward to further events. Can she bake and can she
brew?"

"I do not doubt that she could if she tried."

"And can she wash a shirt for a man? Don't suppose, my dear fellow,
that I intend to say that your wife will have to wash yours. Washing
a shirt, as read in the poem from which I am quoting, is presumed to
be simply emblematic of household duties in general."

"I take all you say in good part,--as coming from a friend."

"I regard matrimony," said the Colonel, "as being altogether the
happiest state of life