“What is it, Mr. Walton?” the clerk asked, eagerly.
“Why, Toby, I ain't much at match-making, but I am going to try my hand at the game. Now, if I could only persuade Margaret Dearing to be sensible, like most women always have been in regard to the early slips of the men they marry—if I could persuade her to overlook the only thing that now remains against the boy—”
“They would get married, and both would prefer to live here!” Toby broke in, eagerly.
“That's the point, Toby,” Walton said. “You've hit it. Now drive me home.”
CHAPTER XVIII
ONE afternoon, three days after this, Simon Walton drove down the street to Dearing's, and, alighting at the front gate, he carefully haltered his horse to the hitching-post with a rope he always carried under the buggy-seat. Then he opened the gate and trudged up the walk to the door.
Margaret saw him from the window of her room upstairs, and, thinking that he had called to see her uncle or her brother, she hurried down-stairs.
“Did you want to see my uncle?” she asked, sweetly.