"Seventy pounds a year, with a house, if you get the school, and some more if you win a certificate, my lad; so that all your income is depending upon ifs." "I am sure of the school, sir," said Luke, warmly, as he coloured up. "Are you, my lad? I'm not," said the Churchwarden, drily. "No, Luke Ross, I like you, for I believe you to be a clever scholar, and--what to my mind's ten thousand times better than scholarship--I know you to be a true, good-hearted lad." "I thank you, sir," said Luke, whose heart was sinking; and Portlock went on-- "I'm not a poor man, Luke, and every penny I have I made with my own hand and brain. Sage is as good as my child, and when we old folks go to sleep I dare say she and her sister will have a nice bit o' money for themselves." "I never thought of such a thing as money, sir," cried Luke, hotly. "I don't believe you ever did, my boy," said the Churchwarden. "But now listen. Sage is very young yet, and hardly knows her own mind. I tell you--there, there, let me speak. I know she thinks she loves you. I tell you, I say, that I'd sooner see Sage your wife than that of any man I know; but I'm not going to keep you both, and make you sacrifice your independence, and I'm not going to have my child goto a life of drudgery and poverty." "But you forget, sir, we should be both having incomes from our schools." "No, I don't, boy. While you were young. How about the time when she had children--how then? And I don't believe in a man and his wife both teaching schools. A woman has got enough to do to make her husband's home so snug that he shall think it, as he ought to do, the very best place in the whole world, and she can't do that and teach school too. Do you hear?" "Yes, sir," said Luke, very humbly, though he did not approve of his old friend's opinions. "Then look here, Luke Ross, I like you, and when you can come to me and say, `Joseph Portlock, I have a good permanent income of five hundred a year,' Sage, if she likes, shall be your wife." "Five hundred a year, sir!" faltered Luke, with a strange, unreal dread seeming to rise before him like a mist of the possibility that before then Sage's love might change. "Yes, my lad, five hundred a year." "Uncle," said Sage, opening the door, "Mr Mallow has called to see you;" and a strange look passed between the two young men, as Cyril Mallow entered the room. PART ONE, CHAPTER THIRTEEN. VISITORS AT THE FARM. The morning of Mrs Portlock's party, and Uncle Joseph just returned from his round in the farm, to look smilingly at the preparations that were going on, and very tenderly at Sage, who looked downcast and troubled. "Well, girls," he cried, "how goes it? Come, old lady, let it be a good set-out, for Sage here won't have much more chance for helping you when these holidays are over." "I wish she'd give the school teaching up," said Mrs Portlock, rather fretfully, as she sat gathering her apron into pleats.