"Have I?" he said, absently, walking in deep thought, and pulling the hedge-leaves as he went along.
"What will your wife say?"
"My wife? bless her!" and he seemed to be only speaking the conclusion of his thinking. "It will make no difference to her—though it might to me. She married me in my low estate—but some day, God willing, no lady in the land shall be higher than my Ursula."
Thus as in all things each thought most of the other, and both of Him—whose will was to them beyond all human love, ay, even such love as theirs.
Slowly, slowly, I watched the grey turrets of the manor-house fade away in the dusk; the hills grew indistinct, and suddenly we saw the little twinkling light that we knew was the lamp in Longfield parlour, shine out like a glow-worm across the misty fields.
"I wonder if the children are gone to bed, Phineas?"
And the fatherly eyes turned fondly to that pretty winking light; the fatherly heart began to hover over the dear little nest of home.
"Surely there's some one at the white gate. Ursula!"
"John! Ah—it is you."
The mother did not express her feelings after the fashion of most women; but I knew by her waiting there, and by the nervous tremble of her hand, how great her anxiety had been.