There was a pause--the longest that yet had come. 'What _are_ you afraid of?' Miss Levering asked. 'It's--you see, I've been looking these twelve years to see you married.' 'Me? What's that got to do with----' 'Yes, miss. You see, I've counted a good while on looking after children again some day. But if you won't get married----' Vida flung her hair back with a burst of not very merry laughter. 'If I won't, you must! But _why_ in the world? I'd no idea you were so romantic. Why must there be a wedding in the family, Wark?' 'So there can be children, miss,' said the woman, stolidly. 'Well, there is a child. There's Doris.' 'Poor Miss Doris!' The woman shook her head. 'But she's got a good nurse. I say it, though she calls advice interfering. And Miss Doris has got a mother' (plain that Wark was again in the market garden). 'Yes, _she's_ got a mother! and a sort of a father, and she's got a governess, and a servant to carry her about. I sometimes think what Miss Doris needs most is a little letting alone. Leastways, she don't need _me_. No, nor _you_, miss.' 'And you've given me up?' the mistress probed. Wark raised her red eyes. 'Of course, miss, if I'm wrong----' Her knuckly hand slid down from the brass bar, and she came round to the side of the bed with an unmistakable eagerness in her face. 'If you're going to get married, I don't see as I _could_ leave ye.' The lady's lips twitched with an instant's silent laughter, but there was something else than laughter in her eyes. 'Oh, I _can_ buy you off, can I? If I give you my word--if to save you from need to try the great experiment, I'll sacrifice _my_self----' 'I wouldn't like to see you make a sacrifice, miss,' Wark said, with perfect gravity. 'But'--as though reconsidering--'you wouldn't feel it so much, I dare say, after the child was there.' They looked at one another. 'If it's children you yearn for, my poor Wark, you've waited too long, I'm afraid.' 'Oh, no, miss.' She spoke with a fatuous confidence. 'Why, you must be fifty.' 'Fifty-three, miss. But'--she met her mistress's eye unflinching--'Bunting--he's the market gardener--he's been married before. He's got three girls and two boys.' 'Heavens!' Vida fell back against the pillow. 'What a handful!' 'Oh, no, 'm. My cousin says they're nice children.' It would have been funny if it hadn't somehow been pathetic to see how instantly she was on the defensive. '"Healthy and hearty," my cousin says, all but the little one. She hardly thinks they'll raise _him_.' 'Well, I wish your market gardener had confined himself to raising onions and cabbages. If he hadn't those children I don't believe you'd dream of----' 'Well, of course not, miss. But it seems like those children need some one to look after them more than--more than----' 'Than I do? That ought to be true.' 'One of 'em is little more than a baby.' The wooden woman offered it as an apology. 'Take the tray,' said Vida.