"I think so. May I come to-morrow afternoon? At what hour?"
"About five. We have an engagement in the evening."
He arose, took her hand, pressed it gently and said earnestly, "I beg that you will remember that it would be my dearest wish to make you my wife under any circumstances."
"I will remember," returned Linda.
"Please give my regards to Miss Hill," continued Mr. Jeffreys, taking up his hat. "I owe her a debt of thanks for giving me this opportunity of seeing you alone." And he bowed himself out.
There were but few persons in the large drawing-room, and they had been quite sequestered in their little alcove. Linda returned to her seat, and lingered there, thinking, thinking. Presently she smiled and whispered to herself, "He never once said he loved, never once. 'As moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine,'" she murmured musingly. So he would marry her and take her to his city, where there would be no Aunt Ri, no warm-hearted neighbors to welcome her with cordial emphasis, as there would be when she went back to Sandbridge. Nevermore the flat, level roads, the little salt rivers, the simple every-day intercourse of friend with friend, the easy-going unambitious way of living, the smiling content. Instead, the eager struggle for greater ostentation and luxury, which she saw even in the city where she now was; the cold, calculating stares from utter strangers, when she went among them, interest lacking, affection wanting. But on the other hand, she would come back to her old home every year, and it would be truly hers. But how hard it would be to go from it again! And after a while she would be coming less and less frequently. She would grow reticent and unapproachable. Repression would silently work the change in her. She would have the opportunity of pouring out her thoughts on paper, to be sure, but—so she would at home. "No, no, no," she cried; "I'd rather a thousand times teach my restless boys for the remainder of my life. I don't love him, and that is exactly what is wrong. Where he lives has nothing to do with it. Goodbye, Talbot's Angles. You were never mine, and you never will be now."
She went to her room, tip-toeing gently that Miss Ri might not hear her in the adjoining one. She slipped quietly into a chair near the window and gave herself up to her thoughts. She must not let Miss Ri think her caller had remained so short a time, and the dear woman must not be told of what had occurred. When she heard a stirring around in the next room, she knocked on the door, which was quickly opened to her.
"Well, child, has your young man gone?" came the query. "What did he have to say?"
"He told me the same thing Grace did about Talbot's Angles."