“I know it, Father,” said the girl, recovering her gravity, turning her large eyes lovingly upon him and speaking very tenderly. “I know it—oh, I know it; and many, many times when I have thought of it, and then again of your old kindly faith; all the warm wealth of your love; and our old home here, and all the happiness it ever held for me and you alike—oh, I have tried hard—indeed, indeed I have—to put all other thought away and live for you alone! But, Pop’m! dear old Pop’m—”And even as the great strong breast made shelter for her own, the woman’s heart within her flowed away in mists of gracious tears. “Couldn’t live without old Pop’m, could her?” half cried and laughed the happy Mr. Twiggs, tangling his clumsy fingers in the long dark hair that fell across his arm, and bending till his glad face touched her own.—“Couldn’t live without old Pop’m?” “Never! never!” sobbed the girl, lifting her brimming eyes and gazing in the kind old face. “Oh, may I always live with you, Pop’m? Always?—Forever?—” “—And a day!” said Mr. Twiggs, emphatically. “Even after I’m—” and she hid her face again. “Even after—_what_, Tudens?” “After I’m—after I’m—married?” murmured Tudens, with a longing pressure. “Nothink short!” said Mr. Twiggs;—“perwidin’,” he added, releasing one hand and smoothing back his scanty hair—“perwidin’, of course, that your man is a’ honest, straitforrerd feller, as ain’t no lordly notions nor nothink o’ that sort.” “Nor rich?” “Well, I ain’t so p’ticklar about his bein’ _pore_, adzackly.—Say a feller as works for his livin’, and knows how to ’usband his earnin’s thrifty-like, and allus ’as a hextry crown or two laid up against a rainy day—and a good perwider, of course,” said Mr. Twiggs, with a comfortable glance around the room.—“’Ll blow me if I didn’t see a face there a-peerin’ in the winder!” “Oh, no, you didn’t,” said the girl, without raising her head. “Go on—‘and a good provider—’” “—A good perwider,” continued Mr. Twiggs; “and a feller, of course, as has a’ eye out for the substantials of this life, and ain’t afeard o’ work—that’s the idear! that’s the idear!” said Mr. Twiggs, by way of sweeping conclusion. “And that’s all old Pop’m asks, after all?” queried the girl, with her radiant face wistful as his own. “W’y, certainly!” said Mr. Twiggs, with heartiness. “Ain’t that all and everythink to make home happy?”—catching her face between his great brown hands and kissing her triumphantly. “Hooray for Twiggs-and Twiggs-and Twiggs-and—” cootered the drowsy bird, disjointedly. The girl had risen.—“And you’ll forgive me for marrying such a man?” “Won’t I?” said Mr. Twiggs, with a rapturous twinkle. As he spoke, she flung her arms about his neck and pressed her lips close, close against his cheek, her own glad face now fronting the little window.... She heard the clicking of the latch, the opening of the door, and the step of the intruder ere she loosed her hold.