“They’ll be taken aback, Over There, when they hear we’re coming!” he contributed presently, more cheerfully. “I doubt they won’t credit it, at first, we’ve been so long about it!” “Nay, they’ll credit it all right!” Mattie laughed contentedly. “Many’s the time Maggie’s told me she’s dreamt we were on the road. All the same, they’ll be on pins till we’ve actually arrived. They’ll be thinking every day as we might go and change our minds.” He shook his head without looking at her. “Nay, we’ll not do that. It’s too big a thing, is this, to go playing about with.” “Too big a thing, and too short of time. It’s got to be yes or no with folks when they get to our time of life. Just yes or no.... Anyway, they’ll know it won’t be _me_ as’ll be likely to change,” she added, with a touch of defiance. “It’s you they’ll be afraid of, if it’s anybody.” “They’ve no call to be afraid, nor you, neither. I’ve passed my word, and I’m going to keep it. I shouldn’t have written that letter if I hadn’t meant it.” “There’s many a letter gets written as is never sent,” Mattie said, half-mischievously, dallying, as human nature loves to do, on the very threshold of happiness. “I was saying something of the sort only just now.” “This here’ll get sent right enough, don’t you fear....” He straightened himself a little, and his mouth set firmly. “Where’s it got to, by the way? I’ll be making the round of the place, this afternoon, and I could leave it as I pass.” She nodded a trifle vaguely in the direction of one of the cupboards. “I sided it away, so it wouldn’t get lost.... I could likely run down with it for you if you’re busy?” He said “no” to that, however, speaking with the same air of determination which sat so strangely upon him. It might be Mattie who, in the long run, had brought about the present position, but dignity demanded that at least he should hand in his own notice. “I’d best see to it myself,” he told her, getting up from the table. “Mind and give it me before I go.” “Likely I’d forget to give it you, isn’t it?” she laughed; and then, still laughing, shivered.... “It fair gives me the creeps to think how, if that letter never went, things’d be just the same as before!” “They wouldn’t be quite the same, no matter what happened. Folks pass on, somehow. Even _trying_ to do things makes a difference.” “A deal o’ difference it’d make to me, I’m sure,” Mattie answered him cynically, “if I found myself still landed in this one-eyed spot!... Ay, well, I won’t go fretting about things, just when they’re shaping so nicely,” she corrected herself quickly. “Anyway, I’m glad you’ve seen your way to facing the job at last.” There was a hint of interrogation in her tone as to how he had arrived at his decision, together with another and fainter one as to how he was taking it. Standing, he looked away from her through the window while he answered her unspoken questions.