"Tom! oh, Tom!" cried his mother's voice within. "To think I haven't told you! But you give me no time!" A minute later, as Hester walked away along the gallery, she heard his step following. "But why wouldn't you come in?" he demanded, and went on before she could answer, "To think of your being Matron here! But of course mother had no time to reach me with a letter." "She gave me yours to read," said Hester mischievously; whereat Tom flushed and looked away and laughed. "Tell me," she went on. "What did she answer?" "She? Who?" "Why, Harriet--wasn't that her name?" "There's no such person." "What? Do you mean to say it was all a trick, and there's no Harriet Sands in existence?" "You're wrong now. There _is_ a Harriet Sands, and she belongs to Runcorn too; only she's a ship." "A ship! And the letter you made me write--it almost made me cry, too--was _that_ meant only for a ship?" "No, it was not--but you're laughing at me." He turned almost savagely, and catching sight of something in her eyes, stood still. "If you only knew---_do_ you know?" "I wish I did--I think I do." He caught at her hands and clasped them over the daffodils. "If ever I'm a widow," said a panting voice a few paces away, "if ever I'm a widow (which the Lord forbid!), I'll end my days on a ground floor 'pon the flat. Companion-ladders is bad enough when you've a man to look after; but when you've put 'en away and can take your meals easy, to chase a bereaved woman up a hill like the side of a house, an' _then_ up a flight of stairs, for five shillings a week and all found--O-oh!" Mrs. Purchase halted at the stair-head; and it is a question which of three faces was redder. "O-oh!" repeated Mrs. Purchase. "Here come I with news enough to upset a town, and simmin' to me here's a pair that won't value it more'n a rush. Well-a-well! Am I to go away, my dears, or wish 'ee fortune? You're a sly fellow too, Tom Trevarthen, to go and get hold of a schoolmistress, when 'tis only a little schoolin' you want to get a certificate and be master of a ship. That's the honest truth, my dear,"--she turned to Hester. "'Twas he that worked the _Virtuous Lady_ home, and if you can teach 'en navigation to pass the board, he shall have her and you too. Do I mean it? Iss, fay, I mean it. I'm hauled ashore. 'Tis 'Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant,' with Hannah Purchase." Late that evening Clem and Myra walked hand in hand, hushed, through the unkempt garden--their garden now, though to their childish intelligence no more theirs than it had always been. They might lift their voices now and run shouting with no one to rebuke them. They understood this, yet somehow they did not put it to the proof. Home was home, and the old constraint a part of it.