“It would have been strange, indeed, if you had not found me. Every evening, as sure as the gloaming came, I have been here waiting for you, Margaret. I did not think you would have kept me so long. But it is not as it used to be between us, when I thought, perhaps, you might cast me off at any moment. I a poor farmer’s son, you the young lady of Earl’s-hall; but that could not be now; for you are mine, and I am yours.” “It would not have been at any time--for that reason,” said Margaret. She was uneasy about the very close proximity he wished for, and avoided his arm. In her great trouble she had not thought of this, but now it troubled and partially shocked her, though she could scarcely tell why. She was roused, however, by the idea that she could have slighted him for any ignoble reason. “It is you that have always been kind to me,” she said. “I, who am only a country-girl, and know nothing at all.” “You are a princess,” said Rob; “you are a queen to me. _My_ queen and my Margaret: but you will not keep me so long hungering and thirsting out here, far from the light of your sweet countenance? you will not leave me so long again?” “Oh, Mr. Glen!” said Margaret, “I ought to let you know at once, we are going away.” “Do not, for Heaven’s sake, call me Mr. Glen! Do you want to make me very unhappy, to take away all pleasures from me? Surely the time is over in which you should call me Mr. Glen. You cannot want to play with me and make me wretched, Margaret?” “No,” she said, with a tremor in her voice; “I will call you by your name, as I used to do when I was little. But it is quite true that I said--we are going away.” “Going away? Where are you going, and who are we? Oh yes, I knew it was not likely they would stay here,” cried Rob, with mingled irritation and despair. “Where are they going to take you, my Margaret?--nowhere that I cannot come and see you, nowhere that I will not follow you, my darling. I would go after you to the world’s-end.” “I am going with my sisters, Jean and Grace. They are my guardians now. I am to live with them till--for three years at least, till I am twenty-one; then they say I can do what I like. What does it matter now about doing what I like? I do not think I care what becomes of me, now that I have no one, no one that has a right to me! and they will not even let me cry.” She began to weep, and he did not stop her, though his mind was full of impatience. He drew her to him close, and this time she did not resist him.