"You have all been very good to me," cried Meg gratefully. "Oh, let me say it for once, Tom."
He grunted impatiently.
"And I shouldn't 'look' if you called me 'Margaret' now—I should like it."
"No," said Tom, puckering up his face into rather an odd expression. "Ye shall be 'Barnabas' wife' to me till th' end o' th' chapter."
He went off whistling, and Meg presently went down to the field to wait for Barnabas.
Granny Dale's cottage was some way off; but she had no doubt that the preacher would be back in time; she had implicit faith in his promises, and there were still a few minutes to spare when she saw him return.
She noticed again, when he drew near, that he looked worn and harassed; but his expression softened, as it always did, at sight of her.
"Ye'll be glad enough to leave th' place," he said. His voice sounded so dispirited that Meg, with an unusual impulse, put her arm through his as they stood together, and moved closer to him.
It had been dawning on her of late that this man's love for her gave her a power to help or hinder him, such as no one else, not even Tom, possessed; and that, occasionally, for all his strength, he needed help. It was an idea slow to take root, an idea she was half afraid of, which, once accepted, might work strange wonders.
"What is the matter?" she asked.