"I don't deserve half these thanks; I have done very little, after all. So you thought I had forgotten you? When you know me better," went on Garth with good-humored reproach, "you will find out that I am a man of my word. When I say I will do a thing you may be sure that if it be in my power it will be done."
"I was not so unjust as to doubt you," returned Queenie, humbly, "only as the days went on I lost hope. I thought you had failed in persuading Mr. Logan, and did not like to tell me."
"I hope I never shrink from any duty, however unpleasant; procrastination is only for cowards. I should certainly have told you at once, Miss Marriott. But now for these miserable details," continued Garth, changing his grave tone into a lighter one. "So you will persist in thinking it a matter of congratulation that you are to be our future school-mistress?"
"Certainly."
"It is not a very desirable post; indeed, it is quite beneath your acceptance. You cannot think how strongly Mr. Logan and I feel on that point. As the Vicar's churchwarden I had a right to take my own ground in the matter, and we have arranged that your future stipend shall be fifty pounds a-year. More than this is out of our power," continued Garth, stammering a little, and for the first time becoming slightly embarrassed. "There is not even a dwelling-house or lodging attached to the salary; but the Vicar wishes, that is—" corrected Garth, feeling himself on the edge of a very decided fib, and slightly daunted by the look in Queenie's eyes.
"You are not going to offer me more than my fair salary?" returned the girl, drawing up her head with a sudden gesture of pride he had never seen in her before, and her voice sounded clear and decided. "You told Mr. Logan, of course, that this was impossible? I will work; but I will not be beholden to him or any other man for a penny more than I have honestly earned. Forty, not fifty, pounds was the sum you named to me in the quarry."
"Don't be contumacious, Miss Marriott," returned Garth, with an amused look; but on the whole he rather liked the girl's independence than otherwise; it accorded with his own notions. He had held these sentiments all his life, and it was his chief pride that he had never been beholden to his fellows for anything that he could not justly claim. "Pride, independence, were necessary adjuncts to manhood," so Garth thought; "but in a woman, perhaps, they might be made to yield under the pressure of emergency."
"I will only take what belongs to me," she continued obstinately.
"Then that will be fifty pounds a-year. Listen to me, please," as she again attempted to speak. "I am the Vicar's warden, and have a right to use my authority in this affair. I have always considered that our mistresses are underpaid; I intend to fix the salary from this time at the sum I named. Mr. Logan and Captain Fawcett, our remaining trustee, agree to this; so," finished Garth, with a persuasive smile, "it is signed, sealed, and delivered, and only wants your consent."
Queenie bowed her head gravely, and with a little dignity. She was sharp-witted enough to see that Garth had not said all he intended, that something perilous to her pride lay folded on the edge of that fib; something that, with the kindest intentions in the world, would have wounded her susceptibility and hurt her.