Estelle said, "Oh, dear Lady Staines, believe me—with all my heart!"
Lady Staines didn't believe her, but she smiled good-humoredly. "Yes, yes, my dear, I know!" she said. "But how much heart have you got? You see his happiness and yours depend on that. The woman who marries a Staines ought to have a good deal of heart and all of it ought to be his."
Estelle put on an air of pretty dignity. "I have never loved any one before," she asserted with serene untruthfulness (she felt sure this fact couldn't be proved against her), "and Winn believes in my heart."
"Does he?" said his mother. "I wonder. He believes in your pretty face! Well, it is pretty, I acknowledge that. Keep it as pretty as you can."
She didn't kiss her future daughter-in-law, but she tapped her lightly on the shoulder and trudged back with head erect through the rain.
"It's a bad business," she said to herself thoughtfully. "He's rushed his fence and there's a ditch on the other side of it, deep enough to drown him!"
CHAPTER III
Winn wanted, if possible, a home without rows. He knew very little of homes, and nothing which had made him suppose this ideal likely to be realized.
Still he went on having it, hiding it, and hoping for it.