She waited till Agnes’s sudden flurry of tears was over, and then she put an arm around her. “I oughtn’t to have said that, Agnes,” she confessed, “for there is Archie, and of course you would not think of Mr. Willett; he is too old for a girl like you, and I knew you never thought of him in that way.” In the eyes of the seventeen-year-old maid to be twenty-five was to be middle-aged. “I knew something had gone wrong,” she went on, “when I told you we had heard from Archie; I knew you expected a letter, and it is a hard thing to have a disappointment like that.”
Agnes hung her head. “I wasn’t thinking of the letter, Jeanie,” she said truthfully. “I think Archie has gone out of my life altogether, and I am not like to marry at all, for there will be mother and the children, and I am the eldest.”
“Yes; but by the time Archie has finished his studies Sandy will be old enough to manage, and the others will be out of leading-strings. I am the eldest at home, too, but—oh, you will not be an old maid, Agnes, nor will I.”
“Nor will you? No, I think not,” Agnes smiled, “for there is David.”
“Yes, there is David. That is one of the other things I had to tell. It is David.”
“Really? Really, Jeanie?” Agnes caught her friend’s hands in hers. “Has he summoned courage? And when was it? and when will it be? Tell me all. How could you keep it all this time, you naughty lassie?”
“I kept it till the last. I wanted to tell you since last Sabbath day when he came to sit up with me, and he and father discoursed so long upon the sermon I thought I’d never get a word from him; but when mother was putting the bairnies to bed, father heard a noise among the beasts, and he went out to see what it was, and so—and so—then we were alone, and it was so quiet, oh, so quiet, for neither of us spoke for a long time, and then I laughed and said, ‘Why don’t you say something?’ And he—he did say something.”
“I am so glad,” said Agnes. “And does he come every evening to sit up with you?”
“Yes, every evening, and we are to be married this spring. There will be a house-raising, Nancy, and I am very happy in all except that I wish Archie were here. Father and mother are quite satisfied, for David is sober and industrious and—”
“I am a witch.”