and laces; but _he_ remained, the pride and jewel of her life. ‘Vernie’ loved her. It was so wonderful, so delightful, so unexpected, that her head swam when she thought of it. She was just considering whether she might not venture to stroll up the long fields again that evening--whether ‘Vernie’ might not come out as he had done the evening before in hopes of meeting her, when Hugh Owen raised the latch of the farmhouse door and walked unceremoniously in. His entrance annoyed Nell. It disturbed her beautiful reverie, put to flight all her golden dreams, and made her fear lest his visit might be prolonged so as to interfere with her plans. The welcome he received, therefore, was not, to say the least of it, cordial. ‘Neither father nor mother are at home, Hugh,’ she said, as she caught sight of him, ‘and I’m just going out. You’ve come at an unlucky moment.’ ‘So I always seem to come now,’ he answered; ‘but I have a word or two to you, Nell, that can’t be put off; so I must ask you to listen to me for a few minutes first.’ ‘They must be very few, then, for I’ve got work of my own to do,’ she replied. ‘It’s the work you do that I’ve come to speak to you about,’ said the young man, ‘and I claim the right to do so. I was sauntering up and down the road last night, Nell, in the hope of catching sight of you, when I saw you cross the meadow over there and meet a man and talk to him for better than half an hour. Who was he?’ Nell flared up in her impetuous manner at once. ‘And what business is that of yours?’ she exclaimed. ‘Why, every business in the world! Whose should it be but mine? Haven’t you promised to be my wife?’ ‘No!’ cried the girl boldly. ‘No? What! not in the Long Meadow behind father’s house?’ he returned in astonishment. ‘I said if my people ever emigrated--which they never will do--that I would go with them as your wife; but that was only a conditional promise, and I’ve altered my mind since then. I shall never be anybody’s wife now.’ ‘If I saw rightly last night, Nell, perhaps it will be as well. Who was the gentleman you met and talked with for so long? What is he to you? Where have you met him before? What had you to say to him?’ ‘Which of your questions will you have answered first?’ asked Nell. ‘And what is it to you who I choose to talk to? Are you my master, or am I a child to be catechised after this fashion? I shall see and speak to whom I like, and I refuse to say anything more about it.’ ‘Nell,’ said Hugh in a sorrowful voice, ‘when you told me your history I was truly sorry for you. I thought what a terrible thing it was that such a respectable girl should lower herself to the level of the lowest of her sex; but I believed it was a misfortune--a step into which you had been led with your eyes shut--and that you regarded it with horror and loathing. I must have thought so, you know, or I should never have proposed to make you my wife.’ ‘Well, and what is all this tirade leading to?’ said Nell.