'You are always worrying me,' retorted the girl, 'and hinting of broken promises when I have never made any.' 'Between us, they were scarcely necessary, Ellinor, and yet you have made me scores.' 'I--when?' 'Since we were children.' 'Oh--of course, when we played at being sweethearts, and all that sort of thing.' 'Played! It has been no child's play with me at least.' 'Such child's play is ended now--and I won't be scolded thus.' She had never adopted this tone to him before, and young Wodrow was shocked, startled, and enraged; but still he dissembled, for love will tame and subdue the proudest heart, and his was full of great love for the girl who now stood before him, biting her nether lip, and shuffling the gravel with a little impatient foot. 'Ellinor,' said Robert, yet without attempting to take her hand, 'if you did not quite encourage my love, you permitted and adopted it--you accepted it since we were happy little children that toddled and played about together--and that love has gone on, growing with my growth and strengthening with my strength; and I never dreamed of, never thought of picturing the time when you might cast me off. And now I never doubted that when I graduated----' 'Oh, Robert,' interrupted the girl, nervously, 'you are too romantic; too much of a boy----' 'I am not a boy now, and I won't be called one! and as for a romance--certainly you have become very matter-of-fact, when I have heard you laugh at even a competence as not being sufficient.' 'Shall I tell you what I think it should be?' said Ellinor, a little defiantly. 'Do,' he responded, gloomily. 'I think it means a handsome house--not a cottage (love in that is all very well, but may be apt to fly out of the windows); fine furniture--beautiful pictures and dresses--lots of servants--a carriage----' 'Oh, stop, please! Since when have you found all these things necessary for existence? Dear Ellinor, people can be very happy together with less.' 'Quiet as our lives have been here, Robert, poor Mary and I have often had wrung hearts and harassed spirits to keep up an outward and an empty show.' 'What is enough for one, as mother often says, is enough for two.' 'Perhaps, and perhaps not,' said Ellinor, with a waggish expression. Robert Wodrow did not reflect just then that erelong there might be more mouths than two to feed. 'And all these new views of our prospects and of life generally, have occurred to you because----' 'Because what?' 'This man Sleath has come to Invermay.' Ellinor grew pale. There were a few moments' silence, and when Robert Wodrow spoke again his voice sounded strange even to himself. 'I was never half good enough for you, Ellinor--I know that,' said he, humbly, 'yet I will never give you up until--until I hear you are fully engaged to him.'