"Now," said Mason, when she looked up, "I'd like you to help me to get the exact value of _x_ in this little equation. It's a kind of fortune-telling by algebra. We must proceed by elimination; you may strike out such of the letters on the right side of the last equation as do not count for anything." But instead of proceeding as the master suggested, Barbara, whose reserve was partly dissipated by her amusement, took the pencil that he offered her, and after a moment's reflection wrote below: _a_ = 0 _b_ = 0 _x_ = _c_ "I never saw an equation more to my taste," said Hiram. "If it's only circumstances, then circumstances and I are going to fight it out. You think there are things that will keep us from making an equation between Barbara and Hiram?" "There wouldn't be any equation," she said, looking out of half-closed eye-lids, as she always did when speaking with feeling. "Your family is an educated one, and your father and mother wouldn't approve of us. Mother never had any chance to learn, and her talk is very old-fashioned, but she's just as good as good can be, all the same. Tom's unsteady; I hope he'll get over that yet; but your father and mother and your sisters wouldn't like it." "Yes, they would, if they knew you," said Mason, with enthusiasm; "and, besides, I don't see that I'm bound to get their consent." "But that wouldn't change matters," persisted Barbara, despondingly. "If they didn't like it, it wouldn't be nice." "Don't you bother about my happiness, Barbara. If I have you, do you think anything else will trouble me?" He got up and snuffed the candle with his fingers like the brave man that he was. "I'm not bothering about you at all," said Barbara. "I'm not so good as you think I am. I let you take care of yourself in this matter; you're strong, and such things won't worry you." She was picking at her dress as she spoke. "Ever since you said what you did when you helped me over the fence last,"--Barbara took a long breath as she thought of that scene; she had often retraced all its details in her memory,--"I've known that you felt so toward me that you would face any thing. But _I_--I couldn't bear it if your folks should look down on me and I be--your wife." It was hard to say the last words; they sounded strangely, and when they were uttered, the sound of them put her into a trepidation not altogether disagreeable. "Look down on _you_?" said Hiram, with a vehemence Barbara had never known him to manifest before. "Do you think my folks are such idiots? They don't meet a person like you often enough to get the habit of looking down on such." "But you don't know women folks," said Barbara. "I know my family better than you do, and you've got mighty curious notions about them and about yourself. You've always lived here in the woods, and you don't know what you're worth." He lifted the empty apple-basket out of the way and sat down by her.