"We were so sorry to hear," Betsey said at last, after the silence had lasted some time, and was beginning to grow oppressive; "so very sorry to hear that you have lost money by those Herkimers. Do you remember, I told you the very last time we met what I thought of them, and that it was not much? But that warning came too late to benefit you, I suppose. Is it not absurd the way that young Gerald goes fooling around Muriel up the way? It is just what might be expected from a girl like her, who don't belong to anybody, for all her airs; but I confess I am sorry to see his infatuation, though perhaps it only serves the Herkimers right--the stuck-up lot. I always saw through them--insincere, and all show; though of course I would not have said it, on account of their relationship to Aunt Judy; but now, really, it seems downright wrong to hold one's tongue, and looks like countenancing their on-goins," and Betsey stopped to take breath. Joe availed himself of the stoppage to take up his parable. "Yes, Miss Betsey," he said, "it is quite true. I have lost the savings of ten years, and all the ready money my father left. Quite true." "Ah!" sighed Betsey very softly. "But I'm to the fore still; and you just wait and see if I don't make some more--and more than I have been _euchred_ out of." "I like to hear a man speak like that! It sounds so strong and capable." "Do you think you could like the man himself. Miss Betsey? Mind you, it ain't all talking with me! It's going to be real, hard, downright doing--livin' off what my own farm raises, and wearin' homespun off the backs of my own sheep, like a _habitant_; freezing on to every copper cent I can scrape, and laying it all by. It will be a hard and a dull life for the first year or two; but it's a good farm, and well-stocked, and in three or four years' time, when I have bought a new reaper, and a few such tricks, and brought in another hundred acres of useless bush, with my own hard work and the hired boys, I believe things will be on the road to grow better than ever; for, though maybe you would not think it, I have thrown away a deal of money on nonsense in my time. But that's over now. What do you think of it yourself. Miss Betsey?" Betsey turned and looked at him with opening eyes, and met a steadfast gaze more bewildering still, which made her drop them again, and look away. "Think? I think it sounds brave in you to speak like that. A man should never lose heart!" "But it's yourself, I mean. Would you like it yourself?" "If I were a man, that's how I'd like to be. I'd love to play the man so." "But it ain't the _man_ you'd be expected to play. Miss Betsey. It would be the _wife_." Betsey coloured and looked a little hurt. "It's too serious a subject to play with, Mr. Webb." "But it ain't play. It's good, downright, honest earnest I mean." "I don't understand you." "Could you bring yourself to marry a fellow who has lost his money, and is hard up?"