"I'll see what father thinks"—
"No, you won't, Marg'et Ann," broke in Lloyd obstinately. "I think a good deal of your father, but I don't want to marry him; and I don't ask you to promise to marry the fellow I ought to be, or that you think I ought to be; I've asked you to marry me. I don't care what you believe and I don't care what your father thinks; I want to know what you think."
Poor Lloyd made all this energetic avowal without the encouragement of a blush or a smile, or the discouragement of a frown or a tear. All this that a lover watches for anxiously was hidden by a wall of slats and green-checked gingham.
She turned her tubular head covering toward him presently, however, showing him all the troubled pink prettiness it held, and said very genuinely through her tears,—
"Oh, Lloyd, you know well enough what I think!"
They had reached the gate, and it was a very much mollified face which the young man raised to hers as he helped her to dismount.
"Your father and mother wouldn't stand in the way of our getting married, would they?" he asked, as she stood beside him.
"Oh, no, they wouldn't stand in the way," faltered poor Marg'et Ann.
How could she explain to this muscular fellow, whose pale-faced mother had no creed but what Lloyd thought or wanted or liked, that it was their unspoken grief that made it hard for her? How shall any woman explain her family ties to any man?
Marg'et Ann did not need to consult her father. He looked up from his writing when she entered the door.