“In heaven somewhere,” she answered, “waiting for my mother and me. Oh, father!” she broke out, “if only you had been alive you would soon have got me out of my shame and misery! But, thank God! it will soon be over now; my master cannot refuse to set me free.” “Certainly I will set you free,” said Mr. Macintosh, a good deal touched. “With all my heart I forgive you the--the--the debt, and I thank you for bringing me to know the honestest girl--I mean, the most honorable girl I have ever yet had the pleasure to meet.” Hector had been listening, hardly able to contain his delight, and at these last words of his father, like the blundering idiot he was, he rushed forward, and, clasping Annie to his heart, cried out: “Thank God, Annie, my father at least knows what you are!” He met with a rough and astounding check. Far too startled to see who it was that thus embraced her, and unprepared to receive such a salutation, least of all from one she had hitherto regarded as the very prince of gentleness and courtesy, she met it with a sound, ringing box on the ear, which literally staggered Hector, and sent his father into a second peal of laughter, this time as loud as it was merry, and the next moment swelled in volume by that of Hector himself. “Thank you, Annie!” he cried. “I never should have thought you could hit so hard. But, indeed, I beg your pardon. I forgot myself and you too when I behaved so badly. But I’m not sorry, father, after all, for that box on the ear has got me over a difficult task, and compelled me to speak out at once what has been long in my mind, but which I had not the courage to say. Annie,” he went on, turning to her, and standing humbly before her, “I have long loved you; if you will do me the honor to marry me, I am yours the moment you say so.” But Annie’s surprise and the hasty act she had committed in the first impulse of defense had so reacted upon her in a white dismay that she stood before him speechless and almost ready to drop. Awakening from what was fast growing a mere dream of offense to the assured consciousness of another offense almost as flagrant, she stared as if she had suddenly opened her eyes on a whole Walpurgisnacht of demons and witches, while Hector, recovering from his astonishment to the lively delight of having something to pretend at least to forgive Annie, and yielding to sudden Celtic impulse, knelt at her feet, seized her hand, which she had no power to withdraw from him, covered it with eager kisses and placed it on his head. Little more would have made him cast himself prone before her, lift her foot, and place it on his neck. But his father brought a little of his common sense to the rescue. “Tut, Hector!” he said; “give the lass time to come to her senses. Would you woo her like a raving maniac? I don’t, indeed, wonder, after what you heard her tell me, that you should have taken such a sudden fancy to her; but--”