Gainah, behind the yew, her head furtively poked forward, saw the girl look at him--a look that said plainly enough: “And shall not I be your wife? Doesn’t a man leave all and cleave to his wife?” The elder woman’s hands, rubbed over with wet mold which was drying and caking, crossed convulsively on her chest. This was not new to her--this comedy of love. She had played it, too, with something less of fancy. She knew what was coming. She waited, sick at heart, for the first kiss. She nearly fell upon the half-opened leaves of the young lilies when Jethro dropped his massive head and pointed his lips to Pamela’s. Her fingers lost their last hold of the domestic scepter when she heard the quick, liquid chirrup of his kiss on the firm scarlet flesh. CHAPTER VII. PAMELA ran up to her room with the long, low lattice window and the somber furniture. She threw herself full length on the old sofa which she had rescued from one of the attics and covered in the most approved be-frilled style with cretonne. Her head was back on the cushions, her sparkling eyes were on a level with the garden. She looked at the Brussels sprouts with satisfaction, imagining shaven emerald turf and lozenge-shaped beds of standard roses and geraniums in their place. She was going to marry Jethro. Their eyes and lips had met--the thing was settled. Men did not propose in set words and the conventional attitude nowadays. She would marry Jethro. Her future life stretched out before her--smooth, level, pleasant--like the big tennis lawn at Turle. She thought of all the country houses round where she was sure of a hearty welcome because she was a cousin. They were comfortable, easy people, these Turles and Crisps and Jaynes and Furlongers. She had grown really fond of Nancy, with her simper, her pretty pink face, and her glorious red hair. Annie Jayne, in her spick and span nursery with her beaming face bent over her baby boy and her lips flowing forth pious reminiscences of her mother, had her own particular charm. To be simple, to be sterling, that was all one wanted; everything else was garish, meretricious. Hearts were better than the flimsy things called brains. She saw her life roll away year after year, so placid, so uneventful, so comfortable and prosperous. She loved money for her pleasure, not her pocket. She always felt her greatest admiration for Jethro when he hauled out a canvas bag of sovereigns.