"Fred is not come yet?"
"No.
Are you going out again without taking tea, Caleb?" said Mrs. Garth, seeing that her absent-minded husband was putting on again the hat which he had just taken off.
"No, no; I'm only going to Mary a minute."
Mary was in a grassy corner of the garden, where there was a swing loftily hung between two pear-trees.
She had a pink kerchief tied over her head, making a little poke to shade her eyes from the level sunbeams, while she was giving a glorious swing to Letty, who laughed and screamed wildly.
Seeing her father, Mary left the swing and went to meet him, pushing back the pink kerchief and smiling afar off at him with the involuntary smile of loving pleasure.
"I came to look for you, Mary," said Mr. Garth.
"Let us walk about a bit."
Mary knew quite well that her father had something particular to say: his eyebrows made their pathetic angle, and there was a tender gravity in his voice: these things had been signs to her when she was Letty's age.
She put her arm within his, and they turned by the row of nut-trees.
"It will be a sad while before you can be married, Mary," said her father, not looking at her, but at the end of the stick which he held in his other hand.
"Not a sad while, father—I mean to be merry," said Mary, laughingly.
"I have been single and merry for four-and-twenty years and more: I suppose it will not be quite as long again as that."
Then, after a little pause, she said, more gravely, bending her face before her father's, "If you are contented with Fred?"
Caleb screwed up his mouth and turned his head aside wisely.
"Now, father, you did praise him last Wednesday.
You said he had an uncommon notion of stock, and a good eye for things."
"Did I?" said Caleb, rather slyly.
"Yes, I put it all down, and the date, anno Domini, and everything," said Mary.
"You like things to be neatly booked.
And then his behavior to you, father, is really good; he has a deep respect for you; and it is impossible to have a better temper than Fred has."
"Ay, ay; you want to coax me into thinking him a fine match."
"No, indeed, father.
I don't love him because he is a fine match."
"What for, then?"
"Oh, dear, because I have always loved him.
I should never like scolding any one else so well; and that is a point to be thought of in a husband."
"Your mind is quite settled, then, Mary?" said Caleb, returning to his first tone.
"There's no other wish come into it since things have been going on as they have been of late?" (Caleb meant a great deal in that vague phrase;) "because, better late than never.
A woman must not force her heart—she'll do a man no good by that."
"My feelings have not changed, father," said Mary, calmly.
"I shall be constant to Fred as long as he is constant to me.
I don't think either of us could spare the other, or like any one else better, however much we might admire them.
It would make too great a difference to us—like seeing all the old places altered, and changing the name for everything.
We must wait for each other a long while; but Fred knows that."
Instead of speaking immediately, Caleb stood still and screwed his stick on the grassy walk.
Then he said, with emotion in his voice,
"Well, I've got a bit of news.
What do you think of Fred going to live at Stone Court, and managing the land there?"
"How can that ever be, father?" said Mary, wonderingly.
"He would manage it for his aunt Bulstrode.
The poor woman has been to me begging and praying.
She wants to do the lad good, and it might be a fine thing for him.
With saving, he might gradually buy the stock, and he has a turn for farming."
"Oh, Fred would be so happy!
It is too good to believe."
"Ah, but mind you," said Caleb, turning his head warningly,
"I must take it on my shoulders, and be responsible, and see after everything; and that will grieve your mother a bit, though she mayn't say so.
Fred had need be careful."