"I'm the wealthy miller yet."
TENNYSON.
Most devoted was the diligence with which Steadfast toiled and saved with the hope before him. Since the two young girls were no longer at home, and Ben had grown into a strong lad, Stead held that many little indulgences might be dispensed with, one by one, either because they cost money or prevented it from being acquired. No cheese was bought now, and he wanted to sell all the butter and all the apples that were not defective.
Patience contrived that Ben should never be stinted of his usual fare; and she would, not allow that he needed no warm coat for the winter, but she said nothing about the threadbare state of her own petticoat, and she stirred nothing but the thinnest buttermilk into her own porridge, and not even that when the little pigs required it. It was all for Stead.
Patience at twenty was not an uncomely maiden so far as kindly blue eyes, fresh healthy cheeks, and perfect neatness could make her agreeable to look at, but there was an air of carefulness, and of having done a great deal of hard work, which had made her seem out of the reach of the young men who loitered and talked with the maidens on the village green, and looked wistfully at the spot where the maypole had once stood.
Patience was the more amazed by a visit from the Miller Luck and his son. The son was a fine looking young man of three or four and twenty, who had about three years before married a farmer's daughter, and had lost her at the birth of her second child. There he stood, almost as bashful as Stead himself could have been under the circumstances, while his father paid the astonished Patience the compliment of declaring that they had put their heads together, and made up their minds that there was no wench in those parts so like to be a good mother to the babes, nor so thrifty a housewife as she; and, that, though there were plenty of maids to be had who could bring something in their hands, her ways were better than any portion she could bring.
It really was a splendid offer. The position of miller's wife was very prosperous, and the Lucks were highly respected. The old miller was good and kindly, Andrew Luck the steadiest of young men, and though not seen to much advantage as he stood sheepishly moving from leg to leg, he was a very fine, tall, handsome youth, with a certain sweetness and wistfulness in his countenance. Patience had no scruples about previous love and courtship. That was not the point as she answered—
"Thank you, Master Luck, you are very good; but I cannot leave my brothers."
"Let the big one get a wife of his own then," and, as Patience shook her head, and glanced at where Ben, shy of strangers, was cutting rushes, "and if you be tender on the young one, there would be work for him about the place. I know you have been a good mother to him, you'd be the same to our little ones. Come, Andrew, can't ye say a word for yourself?"
"Come, Patience, do 'ee come!" pleaded poor Andrew, and the tears even sprang to his eyes. "I'd be very good to thee, and I know thou would'st be to my poor babes."
Patience's heart really warmed to him, and still more to the babes, but she could only hold out.