“You in blacks.” Then seeing he took it to heart, she added: “Ah, but now Archie dear, you see how trifling I am. You’ll find some good serious girl at home there in Carlisle, and you’d better turn to her. I commend you to Ailsie Bell; she’d be that proud to be a meenister’s wife.”
Archie got up and strode across the floor with something like temper. “I want no Ailsie Bell. You’ve no heart at all, Agnes, and I am going away so soon—next week it will be.”
“So soon as that?” Agnes was serious now. “Maybe I’ll not be seeing you again.”
“Maybe not.”
“Ah, I’m sorry, I am, Archie, and I’d promise if I could, but I’m not staid and good enough for a meenister, and—”
“You’re good enough for me.”
“But I’d not be for the congregation, and I’d be scared of them, so—”
“I’ll not give you up,” said Archie, firmly. “I’ll come back when I’m in orders, and you’ll be older then, and it will seem a holy, noble life to you to help the sinful and suffering.”
Agnes looked overpowered by this burst of enthusiasm, and held down her head, looking very meek, but she saw it was not worth while to try to argue the question. She was sorry to lose Archie, and she raised her blue eyes to him wistfully as she said: “You’ll bear a letter to my mother, won’t you, Archie? I’ll write it and bring it to you, so I’ll see you again.”
Archie promised and then Polly came in, and though she laughed and joked about Archie’s plan, she was more impressed by it than Agnes was. He had suddenly acquired a new dignity in Polly’s eyes, and she treated him with a deference born of the thought that he might one day come back and bring her to task in the matter of her children’s knowledge of the Shorter Catechism, a matter which Polly was likely to pass over slightingly.