“I knew it,” exclaimed Patty triumphantly. “We both said so! And what was Mark to do? He was more than willing to come up here and ask for me like a man, but he knew that he would be ordered off the premises as if he were a thief. That would have angered Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, and made matters worse. We talked and talked until we were hoarse; we thought and thought until we nearly had brain fever from thinking, but there seemed to be no way but to take the bull by the horns.” “You are both so young, you could well have bided awhile.” “We could have bided until we were gray, nothing would have changed father; and just lately I couldn't make Mark bide,” confessed Patty ingenuously. “He has been in a rage about father's treatment of you and me. He knows we haven't the right food to eat, nothing fit to wear, and not an hour of peace or freedom. He has even heard the men at the store say that our very lives might be in danger if we crossed father's will, or angered him beyond a certain point. You can't blame a man who loves a girl, if he wants to take her away from such a wretched life. His love would be good for nothing if he did not long to rescue her!” “I would never have left you behind to bear your slavery alone, while I slipped away to happiness and comfort--not for any man alive would I I have done it!” This speech, so unlike Waitstill in its ungenerous reproach, was repented of as soon as it left her tongue. “Oh, I did not mean that, my darling!” she cried. “I would have welcomed any change for you, and thanked God for it, if only it could have come honorably and aboveboard.” “But, don't you see, Waity, how my marriage helps everything? That is what makes me happiest; that now I shall have a home and it can be yours. Father has plenty of money and can get a housekeeper. He is only sixty-five, and as hale and hearty as a man can be. You have served your time, and surely you need not be his drudge for the rest of your life. Mark and I thought you would spend half the year with us.” Waitstill waived this point as too impossible for discussion. “When and where were you married, Patty?” she asked. “In Allentown, New Hampshire, last Monday, the day you and father went to Saco. Ellen went with us. You needn't suppose it was much fun for me! Girls that think running away to be married is nothing but a lark, do not have to deceive a sister like you, nor have a father such as mine to reckon with afterwards.” “You thought of all that before, didn't you, child?”