“Oh, Mr. Walton, please don't!” Margaret cried out; but there was a glow of irrepressible delight rising in her face, and her beautiful eyes were sparkling. “I don't think I want to talk about it.” “I _have_ to,” the banker insisted, firmly. “I want him back here, Miss Margaret; and, as it stands now, I'm afraid he never will come unless you yield a point or two. He said his one and only spur to making a man of himself had been the hope that--seeing that you hadn't yet chosen a partner--that you might some day or other consider his proposal. He says, though, that he met you in New York, awhile back, and that you deliberately turned him down. He said he couldn't blame you, after all that had happened, but he couldn't help thinking that maybe it would be as well for him never to come nigh you again. That was the way, I say, that _he_ looked at it, blue and down-in-the-mouth, as the poor fellow was during our confab; but I threw out a straw to him, so I did, Miss Margaret. I cited numbers and numbers of cases where young men had eventually lived down early mistakes, and finally been reinstated, to become, in the end, an honor to the land of their birth. He didn't think, after the way you acted in New York, that there was any chance for him at all, but, being anxious to make headway, I told him I was sure you was too much of a Christian at heart to refuse a request like his, offered in the spirit it is offered in. He's sorry for many things that's he done, and wants to wipe 'em out.” Old Walton's eyes shifted almost significantly from her face to the low roof of Mrs. Barry's cottage, and instinctively Margaret's glance followed; then, becoming conscious of the fact, she quickly looked down, and a tinge of color climbed into her pale cheeks. “I think we'd better not say any more about that, Mr. Walton,” she said, more firmly than she had spoken since his arrival. “I am sure your son understands how I feel.”