“And I,” he said, “could not take another step until I had seen you. Do not fear, Martha, to test my patience or my faith in you, for anything you may put upon me will be easy to bear. I have turned our love over and over in my mind; tried to look at it--as we both must, sooner or later--as something which, though it don't in any wise belong to others, yet with which others have the power to interfere. The world isn't made quite right, Martha, and we're living in it.” Martha's lip took a firmer curve. “Our love is right, Gilbert,” she exclaimed, “and the world must give way!” “It must--I've sworn it! Now let us try to see what are the mountains in our path, and how we can best get around or over them. First, this is my position.” Thereupon Gilbert clearly and rapidly explained to her his precise situation. He set forth his favorable prospects of speedy independence, the obstacle which his mother's secret threw in their way, and his inability to guess any means which might unravel the mystery, and hasten his and her deliverance. The disgrace once removed, he thought, all other impediments to their union would be of trifling importance. “I see all that clearly,” said Martha, when he had finished; “now, this is _my_ position.” She told him frankly her father's plans concerning her and gave him, with conscientious minuteness, all the details of Alfred Barton's interview. At first his face grew dark, but at the close he was able to view the subject in its true character, and to contemplate it with as careless a merriment as her own. “You see, Gilbert,” were Martha's final words, “how we are situated. If I marry, against my father's consent, before I am twenty-five”-- “Don't speak of your property, Martha!” he cried; “I never took that into mind!” “I know you didn't. Gilbert, but _I_ do! It is mine, and must be mine, to be yours; here you must let me have my own way--I will obey you in everything else. Four years is not long for us to wait, having faith in each other; and in that time, I doubt not, your mother's secret will be revealed. You cannot, must not, press her further; in the meantime we will see each other as often as possible”-- “Four years!” Gilbert interrupted, in a tone almost of despair. “Well--not quite,” said Martha, smiling archly; “since you must know my exact age, Gilbert, I was twenty-one on the second of last February; so that the time is really three years, four months, and eleven days.” “I'd serve seven years, as Jacob served, if need be,” he said. “It's not alone the waiting; it's the anxiety, the uncertainty, the terrible fear of that which I don't know. I'm sure that Betsy Lavender guesses something about it; have you told her what my mother says?” “It was _your_ secret, Gilbert.” “I didn't think,” he answered, softly. “But it's well she should know. She is the best friend we have. Betsy!”