“But, Nathan Blyth,” said Philip, “my father’s views are changed, as, thank God, he himself is changed, and it is with his permission and by his wish that I am here this morning, and that I ask you, beseech you, to give me Lucy for my wife.” It is not too much to say that Nathan Blyth was surprised almost out of his senses. He had never in any remote degree expected this. His own manly sense and sturdy independence were fully opposed to the idea of such a thing. Lucy’s confession of her love for Philip was an unmixed source of sorrow to him, and all his wise and gentle policy had been directed towards weaning his darling from a love so hopeless and unwise. Her brief stay at the Hall had been a trouble of no ordinary kind. But when Lucy returned promptly and at her own request, and had shown in unmeasured terms her joy at being once more under her father’s roof; when he heard her merry voice singing by his hearth stone, as though she had left no hopeless love behind, he had gladly argued that the spell was broken, and that Lucy, heart-whole and happy, had cast aside the dangerous dream for ever. Though he was wrong in thinking that Lucy’s love for Philip was any the less, he was also wrong in thinking that union with him had ever been any dream of her’s. With Lucy duty was paramount, and the grace of God was omnipotent, and so she had been able to accept the inevitable, and not to pine or sigh for what was as utterly unreachable, to her thinking, as the moon. Nathan saw in Squire Fuller’s consent the result of a grateful impulse, or an unwilling consent for his son’s sake, certain to be followed by an ultimate though distant repentance. The idea of such an event ever dawning to distress his darling, stirred his soul to the depths. “No, Mr. Philip; it cannot be. My mind was one with your father’s on this point, and though his may change, mine has not changed, and I say, now and ever, Keep away from Lucy. Your path and her’s lie wide apart.” Thrusting a bar of iron into the smithy fire, Blithe Natty laid hold of the bellows-handle, and worked it as one who has uttered a fiat against which there is no appeal. In vain did Philip urge his suit; in vain he sought permission to come again. “Mr. Philip, I love and esteem you as much as any living man,” said he at last, “and I cannot bear your entreaties. I know I’m right, and I shall stand to it. Yes; though your father himself should come, my answer will still be ‘No,’ and if nothing else will do, I’ll sell my business, and go away with my girl to some distant place.” Philip was roused and somewhat angry. “Nathan Blyth,” said he, “I’ll follow her to the world’s end,” and like a man at his wits’ end, he turned round and left the Forge. CHAPTER XXXV. OLD ADAM OLLIVER TO THE RESCUE. “Who is it that will doubt The care of Heaven, or think immortal Powers are slow, ’cause they take privilege To choose their own time, when they will send Their blessings down?”