"Then I came to know you better and see how you sympathized with Waitstill's troubles and mine. I couldn't love anybody, I c ouldn't marry anybody, who didn't feel that things at our house can't go on as they are! Father has had a good long trial! Three wives and two daughters have done their best to live with him, and failed. I am not willing to die for him, as my mother did, nor have Waitstill killed if I can help it. Sometimes he is like a man who has lost his senses and sometimes he is only grim and quiet and cruel. If he takes our marriage without a terrible scene, Mark, perhaps it will encourage Waitstill to break her chains as I have mine."
"There's sure to be an awful row," Mark said, as one who had forecasted all the probabilities. "It wouldn't make any difference if you married the Prince of Wales; nothing would suit your father but selecting the man and making all the arrangements; and then he would never choose any one who wouldn't tend the store and work on the farm for him without wages."
"Waitstill will never run away; she isn't like me. She will sit and sit there, slaving and suffering, till doomsday; for the one that loves her isn't free like you!"
"You mean Ivory Boynton? I believe he worships the ground she walks on. I like him better than I used, and I understand him better. Oh! but I'm a lucky young dog to have a kind, liberal father and a bit of money put by to do with as I choose. If I h adn't, I'd be eating my heart out like Ivory!"
"No, you wouldn't eat your heart out; you'd always get what you wanted somehow, and you wouldn't wait for it either; and I'm just the same. I'm not built for giving up, and enduring, and sacrificing. I'm naturally just a tuft of thistle-down, Mark; but living beside Waitstill all these years I've grown ashamed to be so light, blowing about hither and thither. I kept looking at her and borrowing some of her strength, just enough to make me worthy to be her sister. Waitstill is like a bit of Plymouth Rock, only it's a lovely bit on the land side, with earth in the crevices, and flowers blooming all over it and hiding the granite. Oh! if only she will forgive us, Mark, I won't mind what father says or does."
"She will forgive us, Patty darling; don't fret, and cry, and make your pretty eyes all red. I'11 do nothing in all this to make either of you girls ashamed of me, and I'll keep your father and mine ever before my mind to prevent my being foolish or reckless; for, you know, Patty, I'm heels over head in love with you, and it's only for your sake I'm taking all these pains and agreeing to do without my own wedded wife for weeks to come!"
"Does the town clerk, or does the justice of the peace give a wedding-ring, just like the minister?" Patty asked. "I shouldn't feel married without a ring."
"The ring is all ready, and has 'M.W. to P.B.' engraved in it, with the place for the date waiting; and here is the engagement ring if you'11 wear it when you're alone, Patty. My mother gave it to me when she thought there would be something between Annabel Franklin and me. The moment I looked at it--you see it's a topaz stone--and noticed the yellow fire in it, I said to myself: 'It is like no one but Patty Baxter, and if she won't wear it, no other girl shall!' It's the color of the tip ends of your curls and it's just like the light in your eyes when you're making fun!"
"It's heavenly!" cried Patty. "It looks as if it had been made of the yellow autumn leaves, and oh! how I love the sparkle of it!
But never will I take your mother's ring or wear it, Mark, till I've proved myself her loving, dutiful daughter. I'll do the one wrong thing of running away with you and concealing our marriage, but not another if I can help it."
"Very well," sighed Mark, replacing the ring in his pocket with rather a crestfallen air. "But the first thing you know you'll be too good for me, Patty! You used to be a regular will-o'-the-wisp, all nonsense and fun, forever laughing and teasing, so that a fellow could never be sure of you for two minutes together."
"It's all there underneath," said Patty, putting her hand on his arm and turning her wistful face up to his. "It will come again; t he girl in me isn't dead; she isn't even asleep; but she's all sobered down. She can't laugh just now, she can only smile; and the tears are waiting underneath. r eady to spring out if any one says the wrong word. This Patty is frightened and anxious and her heart beats too fast from morning till night. She hasn't any mother, and she cannot say a word to her dear sister, and she's going away to be married to you, that's almost a stranger, and she isn't eighteen, and doesn't know what's coming to her, nor what it means to be married. She dreads her father's anger, and she cannot rest till she knows whether your family will love her and take her in; and, oh! she's a miserable, worried girl, not a bit like the old Patty."
Mark held her close and smoothed the curls under the loose brown hood. "Don't you fret, Patty darling! I'm not the boy I was last week. Every word you say makes me more of a man. At first I would have run away just for the joke; anything to get you away from the other fellows and prove I was the best man, but now' I'm sobered down, too. I'll do nothing rash; I'll be as staid as the judge you want me to be twenty years later. You've made me over, Patty, and if my love for you wasn't the right sort at first, it is now. I wish the road to New Hampshire was full of lions and I c ould fight my way through them just to show you how strong I f eel!"
"There'll be lions enough," smiled Patty through her tears, "though they won't have manes and tails; but I can imagine how father will roar, and how my courage will ooze out of the heels of my boots!"
"Just let me catch the Deacon roaring at my wife!" exclaimed Mark with a swelling chest. "Now, run along, Patty dear, for I don't want you scolded on my account. There's sure to be only a day or two of waiting now, and I shall soon see the signal waving from your window. I'll sound Ellen and see if she's brave enough to be one of the eloping party. Good-night! Good-night! Oh! How I h ope our going away will be to-morrow, my dearest, dearest Patty!"
WINTER
