‘You can be, whenever you choose. Why not at once? Although Uncle Shield says he would prefer that I should not marry for a year, I refused to give any promise on that subject, and am free to please you and myself.’ ‘No, no; I have told you that my ideas are the same as Mr Shield’s. You must be quite free to set your plans in good working order before you tie yourself down to me. For you know I shall require such a heap of attention and looking after!’ And the eyes which had been for a second clouded when he pleaded again for their early union, opened upon him with that gentle light which could lead him anywhere. And so he yielded, allowing the subject of greatest import to their future to be put aside once more for matters of the moment. He told her first with what forbearance his father had acted, and how wisely he had dealt with his fortune. ‘I did expect to have a bad time with him; but he was kinder to me than ever, and has done exactly what I should have asked him to do if he had consulted me beforehand. I am proud of him, and believe that he will be the first to hold out the hand of friendship, when I come to my grand scene of reconciliation between him and my uncle.—What is the matter with you? Why did you start?’ ‘A chill—don’t mind it, please. I do hope you will manage to bring them together in friendship. You know I have as much interest in it as you now.’ ‘That is as it ought to be. I am sure that the governor would give in; but Shield passes all my powers of understanding. He won’t speak like a sensible man to me, and yet he writes like a philosopher—at least as if he took real interest in what I am doing, and wished me to succeed.’ ‘Why do you not write to him about your father?’ ‘Because I am keeping that part of my work in hand until I can pounce upon both of them, and make them feel so ashamed, that they will not be able to say no when I say, and you say with me—Shake hands. We will manage it, you and I. Won’t we?’ ‘I will try to do my part.’ She spoke low, and her thoughts seemed to reach into the future and the past farther than those of her lover. She seemed to feel that her part was a much heavier one than he imagined. ‘For that, of course, we must watch our opportunity, and be ready to seize it when it comes. I know you will not fail, and hope I shall not. But there is another thing I want you to do at once.’ ‘What is that?’ ‘To bring old Culver into a Christian frame of mind regarding Caleb Kersey. You will manage that by proving to him what a fortune Kersey is going to make as my foreman. I am sure he will do well, and sure too that Pansy will be a lucky woman to have such a husband.’ ‘I think she would be; and for a time believed that she thought so too. But lately—I do not know why—I have had a suspicion that Pansy does not care so much for Caleb as she used to do.’