’We don’t all see ourselves as others see us,’ said Oliver sulkily. Honor was stung by his injustice, but she made no reply. She took up her sewing again, but she could not see to make stitches. She laid her work again on her lap, and mused, looking out of the door at the fox-gloves, and the honeysuckle and wild rose in the hedge. The scent of the honeysuckle was wafted into the room. ’Why should Mr. Langford want me as his wife?’ she asked dreamily; ’surely Mrs. Veale will suit him better. She is near his age, and accustomed to his ways. Besides,’ she paused, then resumed, ’there have been queer tales about him and her.’ ’Pshaw, Honor! a pack of lies.’ ’I have no doubt of that,’ she said; ’still—I cannot see why he wants me.’ ’Honor, my child,’ said her father slowly and with his face turned from her; ’he and Nanspian of Chimsworthy don’t hit it off together, and the property is so left that if he hasn’t children it will pass to his sister’s son, young Larry. The old man can’t bear to think of that, and on their reckoning on his dead shoes, and he’d draw a trump from his pack against those Nanspians.’ Honor flamed crimson and her eyes flashed. ’And so—so this is it! I am to help to widen the split! I am to stand between Larry and his rights! Father, dear father, how can you urge me? How can you hope this? No, never, never will I consent. Let him look elsewhere. There are plenty of maidens in Bratton less nice than me. No, never, never will I have him.’ Oliver Luxmore stood up, troubled and ashamed. ’You put everything upside down,’ he said; ’I thought you would be a peace-maker.’ ’You yourself tell me that I am chosen out of spite to make the strife hotter. Now you have told me the why, the matter is made worse. Such an offer is an outrage. Never, father, no, never, never,’ she stamped, so strong, so intense was her disgust. ’I will hear no more. I grieve that you have spoken, father. I grieve more that you have thought such a thing possible. I grieve most of all that you have wished it.’ ’Turn the offer over in your mind, Honor,’ he said sauntering to the door, from which she had withdrawn. She was leaning against the wall between the door and the window, with her hands over her face. ’Milk runs through the fingers when first you dip ’em, but by turning and turning you turn out butter. So, I dare be bound, the whole thing will look different if you turn it over.’ ’I will put it away from me, out of my thought,’ she said hotly. She was hurt and angry. ’If you refuse him we shall have to buy a horse.’ ’Well, we must buy. I will work the flesh from my fingers till I earn it, and get out of obligation. But I never, never, never will consent to be Taverner Langford’s wife, not for your sake, father, nor for that of Charles.’ ’Well,’ said the carrier; ’some folks don’t know what is good for ’em. I reckon there’s a hundred bells on that there flopadock. I’ll go and count ’em.’