“I know it--I know it, my beloved,” said he. “I know that meeting you was the most important thing in my life. And I know that marrying you will be the wisest. You are the first person in the world who gave me credit for having any backbone. You are the first person in the world to give me a sort of respect for myself. My mother is the dearest soul on earth; but she has never thought it necessary to help me on to anything. She was quite content that I should live and inherit the property, and follow her to the grave and then go there myself, doing as little as possible in the interim. It’s wonderful how little a country gentleman can do if he only puts his heart into the business of idling. I think it quite likely that I might have made a record in this way. But you came into my life, and--and you have become my life. That’s why I want you to stay with me--to stand by me, and you’ve promised to do it?” “Have I?” she said. “Yes, I suppose I have; at any rate, whether I have or not you may be sure that I’ll do it. And don’t you doubt, Jack, that we’ll do something in the world before we are parted. A man without a woman beside him represents an imperfect scheme of life. Life--that does not mean a man, nor does it mean a woman; it means the man and the woman. So it was in the beginning, so it is to-day. Life--the man and the woman, each living for the other. That’s life, isn’t it?” “It is; and we’ll do some living, you and I, Priscilla, if others have failed.” “The failures are those who forget--the woman who forgets that she is a woman and seeks to do the man’s work--the man who forgets that he is a man and treats the woman as if she were the same as himself. Oh, here we are talking of the philosophy of life when we should be living. But that’s the way of philosophy: it keeps a man learning the best way to live, and by the time he has learnt it it is time for him to die.” “Hang up philosophy and give us life, say I. Dear girl, you have made me happy and--hungry. I left my bed at four this morning, and now it’s past seven.” “You will come with me and have breakfast. I wonder if any man up to this day ever asked a girl to marry him before breakfast.” “I wonder. But a chap feels so much fresher in the early morning, I think it should be tried more frequently.” “It was a bold experiment, Jack. But it might only succeed when carried out in connection with the dairy industry.” “That is how you come to be up so early. Shall I have a chance of seeing your dad if I go with you? I suppose a dad has always to be reckoned with.” “No one has to be reckoned with except myself in this matter. I am myself, and I know myself, and will obey myself and none other this time--this time.” She spoke with some vehemence, and her last sentence was uttered with a touch of bitterness. He knew what she meant. Providence had come to her rescue once, but a second interposition on her behalf was too much to expect. He could appreciate her feeling.