She knew that poor fools down in the valley were sick with the heat and the fever-dread; for herself, she lived on the cooler moor, and a glance at its clean acres, a touch of its heather-wind, were enough to banish all thought of fever like an unclean ghost that had no place here on the hill-tops. She did not know that a part at least of Gaunt’s haste was due to Priscilla of the Good Intent. Since the day when Cilla had met him on the Shepston Road, Reuben had found the old disquiet return. Like his father before him, he had an instinct toward a wife who was comely of speech and manner; he needed, as Mrs. Mathewson had said bitterly in time of April snow, “a ladyish mistress for Marshlands.” Do as he would these days, Gaunt saw constantly the picture of Cilla in her lilac frock. She would fit the old house as the well-ordered ivy which grew along its front. Her voice would sound cool and low under the dark rafter-beams. There would be flowers about the house again, and the spinet would awaken to life under Cilla’s fingers. Reuben was tormented by that picture, and each detail of it grew clearer as the days went by. The man was to be pitied, maybe, for he had the gift of fancy, and at times it bred in him a strange irresolution. The one instinct in him longed for an orderly home, a settled purpose in life; the other took him to the open lands, where such as Peggy Mathewson, and the pedlar-folk, and the poachers, lived free from all convention. Each attracted him, and he had not once been taught, during his heedless and ungoverned boyhood, that it was idle to pursue two whims at once. Peggy, keen-sighted as she was, had no inkling of Gaunt’s weakness. He was eager, lover-like, full of plans for doing this and that about the house to make it ready for her. Even Widow Mathewson, though she looked for it, saw no hesitancy, no sign of withdrawal as the weeks drew on; and, in her own wry fashion, she was proud of Reuben, as a mother is proud of a weakling son when he shows stray glimpses of true manhood. It was little satisfaction to her, or none at all, that Peggy would be mistress of the biggest farm in Garth, would be wife to one of a yeoman breed so old that the Gaunts were counted as a sort of gentry among their farm-neighbours. The widow had her own pride of station, and not for a moment would she admit that her lass “was bettering herself” by marriage; she was simply glad that the girl, if she must needs set her heart on Reuben, was likely to be treated well. For Peggy there was no shadow lying over these weeks. She had prayed, in her haphazard way, that there should be no break following the glamoured day at Linsall Fair; and her prayer was granted. It seemed strange to her that she had ever found hard words for Reuben. He was strong, and tender, and considerate; he asked only for a speedy wedding, and Peggy chided her mother because the widow was obstinate in her resolve.