"Luckiest of men!" returned his mother. "I am returning home as did the Queen of Sheba; the half was not told!" Rube now felt solid, unquestionably solid, in his own mind. Mell, standing yet in the gateway, looked after them; gladly received they had been, like many another guest; gladly, too, dismissed. "The chain tightens," cogitated the future mistress of the Bigge House, "and if I should want to break it!" But why should she want to break it, unless-- "There's no use counting upon that," Mell frankly admitted to herself, "and no man's difficulties must be allowed to interfere with my future. And Rube is _so_ eligible! A good fellow, too; a most excellent fellow! There's a something, however. What is it?" We will tell you, Mell--Rube is not Jerome. Going back into the house she found her father and mother peeping through the blinds. "Lord, Lord!" exclaimed old Jacob. "You'se jess er gittin' up, Mell! I knowed ye could do it, darter; but I mus' say, I never lookt fer yer ter git es high es the Bigge House." Mrs. Creecy inquired about Mrs. Rutland. Was she nice? pleasant? "Very. No one could be nicer or pleasanter. She asked for you--both of you." "She did? Then why didn't you tell us?" "Wife!" remonstrated the old farmer, "you is sartingly loss yo' senses! Don't ye know, when Mell's fine friends comes er long, we's expected ter run inter er rat-hole or some udder hole? All the use chillun has fer parients these days is ter keep 'em er going. Onst Mrs. Rullan', Mell aint gwine ter know us by site! She aint no chile er mine, no how, Mell aint!" "Wall, now, she is yourn, I kin tell ye," cried Mrs. Creecy, flaring up, very much to the enjoyment of her liege lord. The daughter turned off in disgust. Her father's pleasantries were the least pleasant of all his disagreeable ways. A coarse man's humor is apt to be the coarsest thing about him. It was under very different auspices from those of her day dreams, that Mell, after a few days of busy preparation, was admitted into the sacred precincts of the social hierarchy. Jerome was to have been the founder of her greatness, her steersman in these unknown waters--not Rube. None in this higher realm welcomed her more graciously than Clara. Clara had high views of philosophy, but only one maxim: "See how the hare runs, hear how the owl cries, accept the inevitable, and get all you can out of it." Jerome returned from Cragmore the day following her own domestication into this new sphere of existence. How strange it all seemed, and how unnatural! How strange he should find her there, and with so good a right to be there! Surely years have intervened since those lovely mornings in the meadow, when Sukey cropped the dew-wet grass, and she sat on the old tree-stump and Jerome lay at her feet. Surely long, long years!