“Well, no. But that was years ago, and you were always light to come and go, Reuben. D’ye remember that you left without a good-by said?” she went on, the grievance of five years coming out with sudden bitterness. “Mother talked to ye, Reuben Gaunt--would have thrashed you, I believe, but for your luck--mother is strong as a man to this day, and that’s more than you will ever be.” Reuben’s face was like a dog’s when he has done amiss, and knows it, and tries to make you understand that he is innocent. Of all the welcomes he had found in Garth, this was the sharpest and most tantalizing. “Had my folk to think of, Peggy. ’Twould have broken father’s heart--” “Oh, ay!” The girl was fine in the strength with which she treated Reuben Gaunt. “You always had somebody’s heart to think of, Reuben, when you wanted to run wide and free from trouble. What of me, lad, left here to think of things?” “You’re looking bonnier for the trouble, Peggy, left here or not.” “Old trick o’ yours, Reuben. Your arm was ever lithe to slip about a lass’s waist, and your tongue to grasp a lie.” They looked at each other, and Priscilla of the Good Intent was far away from Reuben. “Could slip an arm about your waist this minute, Peggy.” “Doubtless--if I’d let you.” She stood away from him, alert, secure, yet with a careless touch of invitation in her glance. “What is your errand, Peggy?” he asked after a pause. “I’m taking a sitting of eggs to Hill End Farm. Folk fight rather shy of mother and me, Reuben, but they seem to know where to come when they want a clutch of Black Minorca eggs.” He fell into step beside her, and Peggy only shrugged her shoulders. It was natural, and like old times, that Gaunt should ask no leave. “Carrying my eggs all in one basket,” she said, by and by, after he had helped her over a clumsy stile. “Always did, Reuben, if ye call to mind. ’Tis a failing of the Mathewsons, I’ve heard tell. They don’t look to see if the basket is strong and well-found--they just take a daft fancy to the look on’t, and pop the whole clutch in.” “I’m here in Garth to be sneered at,” said Gaunt, with sudden passion. “I knew it after the first day or two, Peggy, but I’d looked for something different from you.” “You’re always like yourself, Reuben.” The girl looked at him with a quiet, impersonal surprise that was almost pity. “You’d pour honey into one ear and trust it to run out safely at the other. I’m the only lass in the world to ye, eh? Those will-o’-wispish eyes of yours are saying it. Yet honey stays sometimes; and a lass goes on eating it, and finds the taste on’t sweet.” Reuben Gaunt took the basket from her arm and set it down; and then he grasped her hands and stood facing her. There was a suddenness and fire about him that the girl liked to see--as she would have liked to find the withes of her egg-basket not quite so slender as they seemed.