Sixteen years had passed, and now Aaron Winthrop, a well-behaved young gardener, is wanting to marry Eppie, and Eppie is willing to have him "some time."
"'Everybody's married some time,' Aaron says," said Eppie. "But I told him that wasn't true, for I said look at father--he's never been married."
"No, child," said Silas, "your father was a lone man till you was sent to him."
"But you'll never be lone again, father," said Eppie tenderly. "That was what Aaron said--'I could never think o' taking you away from Master Marner, Eppie.' And I said, 'It 'ud be no use if you did, Aaron.' And he wants us all to live together, so as you needn't work a bit, father, only what's for your own pleasure, and he'd be as good as a son to you--that was what he said."
The proposal to separate Eppie from her foster-father came from Godfrey Cass.
When the old stone-pit by Marner's cottage went dry, owing to drainage operations, the skeleton of Dunstan Cass was found, wedged between two great stones. The watch and seals were recognised, and all the weaver's money was at the bottom of the pit. The shock of this discovery moved Godfrey to tell Nancy the secret of his earlier marriage.
"Everything comes to light, Nancy, sooner or later," he said. "That woman Marner found dead in the snow--Eppie's mother--was my wife. Eppie is my child. I oughtn't to have left the child unowned. I oughtn't to have kept it from you."
"It's but little wrong to me, Godfrey," Nancy answered sadly. "You've made it up to me--you've been good to me for fifteen years. It'll be a different coming to us, now she's grown up."
They were childless, and it hadn't occurred to them as they approached Silas Marner's cottage that Godfrey's offer might be declined. At first Godfrey explained that he and his wife wanted to adopt Eppie in place of a daughter.
"Eppie, my child, speak," said old Marner faintly. "I won't stand in your way. Thank Mr. and Mrs. Cass."