"And you shall," Tom declared passionately, "if you'll promise to wait until I can make you one!—but I'll have your word for it. You shall have done with Dixon and stick fast by me, or——"
"Or what?" Rose said with rather frightened eyes.
"Or I'll go where you won't be troubled by me any more. Look here! you've held me on for eighteen months now, and, if you cared for me one-half as I love you, you would be ready enough to come with me to the other side of the world, when I can make you an honest offer of a home. I'd follow you to the world's end; ill or well, rich or poor I'd love you just the same; you should not have a trouble that I could keep from you. I've told you so before, and I tell you so to-night; but it's the last time. You can take me or leave me; but I'll know now which it is to be. It don't matter much to me where you want to live, except that, if I don't take this offer, we must wait a bit; but I'll know your mind about it. It must be 'yes' or 'no' to-night!"
Happily for Rose, Miss Webster's bell pealed a noisy summons at that moment.
"I can't stop, Tom! I really can't! Miss Webster is not one who can wait. I'll think it over and tell you sometime soon."
"When?" asked Tom, catching her hands and holding them so tightly that she gave a little cry.
"Sunday. Sunday night after church; you can see me home if you like," and with that promise Tom had to be content.
"Mind what you are up to, Rose. Don't play with me too far," he said.
And as Rose sat stitching in the housekeeper's room that night, her mind busied itself over Tom's words, and the difficulty of making a decision. It had never entered Rose's pretty head to lay this question of marriage before God. Had she done so she would have been saved from making a mistake, which was to leave its mark upon the whole of her future life. Her heart drew her one way, and her ambition another. Undoubtedly Tom, with his warm heart and openly expressed devotion, was the man she loved the best of the many who had paid her attention; but she might have to wait for him for years, whilst, if Dixon chose to offer it, he could give her a home to-morrow that any girl in the village might envy; but he had never spoken out as Tom had spoken to-night. His wooing had not been so manly and so straight as poor Tom's. Rose had almost made up her mind to tell him on Sunday that she would wait for him, when a voice waked her from her reverie; and the voice was Dixon's.
"I suppose you don't happen to know if the carriage will be wanted to take the ladies to the station to-morrow? I heard some talk about their going out, but I haven't had any orders."