"You and Robin!" he said, again. "Ay, ay! Briar Farm will be in the best of care when I'm dead, and it'll thrive well with young love and hope to keep it going!" He came up to her and took one of her little hands in his own. "There, there!" he went on, patting it gently--"We'll think no more of trouble and folly and mistakes in life; it'll be all joy and peace for you, child! Take God's good blessing of an honest lad's love and be happy with it! And when I come home to-night,"--he paused and appeared to think for a moment--"yes!--when I come home, let me hear that it's all clear and straight between you--and we'll have the banns put up on Sunday!" She said not a word in answer. Her hand slid passively from his hold,--and she never looked up. He hesitated for a moment--then walked towards the door. "You'll have all the day to yourself with Robin," he added, glancing back at her--"There'll be no spies about the place, and no one listening, as there was last night!" She sprang up from her chair, moved at last by an impulse of indignation. "Who was it?" she asked--"I said nothing wrong--and I do not care!--but who was it?" A curious strained look came into old Hugo's eyes as he answered-- "Ned Landon." She looked amazed,--then scared. "Ned Landon?" "Ay! Ned Landon. He hasn't the sweetest of tempers and he isn't always sober. He's a bit in the way sometimes,--ay, ay!--a bit in the way! But he's a good farm hand for all that,--and his word stands for something! I'd rather he hadn't heard you and Robin talking last night--but what's done is done, and it's a mischief easy mended--" "Why, what mischief can there be?" the girl demanded, her colour coming and going quickly--"And why should he have listened? It's a mean trick to spy upon others!" He smiled indulgently. "Of course it's a mean trick, child!--but there's a good many men--and women too--who are just made up of mean tricks and nothing more. They spend their lives in spying upon their neighbours and interfering in everybody's business. You'd soon find that out, my girl, if you lived in the big world that lies outside Briar Farm! Ay!--and that reminds me--" Here he came from the door back into the room again, and going to a quaint old upright oaken press that stood in one corner, he unlocked it and took out a roll of bank-notes. These he counted carefully over to himself, and folding them up put them away in his breast pocket. "Now I'm ready!" he said--"Ready for all I've got to do! Good-bye, my wilding!" He approached her, and lifting her small face between his hands, kissed it tenderly. "Bless thee! No child of my own could be dearer than thou art! All I want now is to leave thee in safe and gentle keeping when I die. Think of this and be good to Robin!"