“I didn’t send you away; you went, and I was wretched, too, but I could not explain. I did not think you would misunderstand so entirely, and I had promised, though I did find there was some one that I cared more for than for Archie, but I couldn’t tell you so to your face. You stayed away such a long time, that time, and I was telling myself that if you loved me, you couldn’t do it, and so I tried to show you that I didn’t care, for you know you had never said.” “No, I had never said half that I ought. I know now that I should have said nothing at all, or I should have told you at once how much I loved you. You would have waited for me, Agnes?” “You know I would,” she answered shyly. “It has been a sad time, my darling little lass. I would never have returned but for the faint hope, which somehow would not be downed, that after all I might find you free, and then that mischievous Carter told me you were to be married. I wonder why he dared to say so. I have a crow to pick with him. Yet, sweetheart, out of our sorrow has come a great joy, as we used to say long ago. Do you remember?” Agnes was looking off at the sunset sky. “I remember. I am glad it was on the hilltop that we met to-day,” she murmured. “The dear hilltop. It has been in my mind many and many a time, when I thought I had lost my dear little frontier lass. Many and many a time I fancied I could see you standing there in your linsey-woolsey gown, with your sunbonnet in your hand, and your little kerchief folded about your neck. I told my mother about you, Agnes, and though my hope was very faint, she bade me keep it alive and to come back here and try to win you. ‘And if you do find that your little girl is free and that her heart is yours, give her my blessing,’ she said, and my sister, too, said, ‘Give Agnes my love.’” The tears came to Agnes’s eyes. She was deeply touched. “How little I deserve it,” she said. “They who are such dainty ladies, if they could see me as you see me now.” “As I see you now? Ah, dear child, they would see a lady in very truth, gentle, sweet, and good, the queen of my heart and home, to whom I shall delight to do homage as long as I am her humble subject.” He bent his head and kissed the brown hand lying in his. “And when I take you to your mother and ask you of her, will she give you to me, do you think?” “Yes, I am sure she will. And there is my father, too. You know about my father?” “I heard and was filled with rejoicing. It was from Henry Flint that I heard. He wrote and told me of what his stay at your house had done for him. I thought, maybe, Agnes, that he might be the ‘more likable one.’” “Dr. Flint? Oh, no. He seems so very much older, and he is but our good friend.” “He worships your mother, and says she is his ideal woman, and--” Parker leaned forward again,--“her daughter grows more and more like her.”