back in a trice, bringing with him his
cherished paper windmill, bought on that fatal
day when Michael had taken him into Kendal,
to have his doom of perpetual idiotcy
pronounced. He thrust it into Susan's face, her
hands, her lap, regardless of the injury his
frail plaything thereby received. He leapt
before her, to think how he had cured all
heart-sorrow, buzzing louder than ever.
Susan looked up at him, and that glance of
her sad eyes sobered him. He began to
whimper, he knew not why; and she now,
comforter in her turn, tried to soothe him by
twirling his windmill. But it was broken;
it made no noise; it would not go round.
This seemed to afflict Susan more than him.
She tried to make it right, although she saw
the task was hopeless; and while she did so,
the tears rained down unheeded from her
bent head on the paper toy.

"It won't do," said she, at last. "It will
never do again." And, somehow, she took
the accident and her words as omens of the
love that was broken, and that she feared
could never be pieced together again. She
rose up and took Willie's hand, and the two
went in slowly to the house.

To her surprise, Michael Hurst sate in the
house-place. House-place is a sort of better
kitchen, where no cookery is done, but which
is reserved for state occasions. Michael had
gone in there because he was accompanied
by his only sister, a woman older than
himself, who was well married beyond Keswick,
and who now came for the first time to make
acquaintance with Susan. Michael had
primed his sister with his wishes with regard
to Will, and the position in which he stood
with Susan; and arriving at Yew Nook in
the absence of the latter, he had not scrupled
to conduct his sister into the guest-room, as
he held Mrs. Gale's worldly position in
respect and admiration, and therefore wished
her to be favourably impressed with all the
signs of property which he was beginning to
consider as Susan's greatest charms. He
had secretly said to himself that if Eleanor
Hebthwaite and Susan Dixon were equal as
to riches, he would sooner have Eleanor by
far. He had begun to consider Susan as
termagant; and when he thought of his
intercourse with her, recollections of her
somewhat warm and hasty temper came far more
readily to his mind than any remembrance of
her generous, loving nature.

And now she stood face to face with him;
her eyes tear-swollen, her garments dusty,
and here and there torn in consequence of
her rapid progress through the bushy bye-
paths. She did not make a favourable
impression on the well-clad Mrs. Gale, dressed
in her best silk-gown, and therefore unusually
susceptible to the appearance of another.
Nor were her manners gracious or cordial.
How could they be, when she remembered
what had passed between Michael and herself
the last time they met? For her penitence
had faded away under the daily disappointment
of these last weary weeks.

But she was hospitable in substance. She
bade Peggy hurry on the kettle, and busied
herself among the tea-cups, thankful that the
presence of Mrs. Gale, as a stranger, would
prevent the immediate recurrence to the one
subject which she felt must be present in
Michael's mind as well as in her own. But
Mrs. Gale was withheld by no such feelings
of delicacy. She had come ready-primed
with the case, and had undertaken to bring
the girl to reason. There was no time to be
lost. It had been pre-arranged between the
brother and sister that he was to stroll out
into the farm-yard before his sister introduced
the subject; but she was so confident in the
success of her arguments, that she must
needs have the triumph of a victory as soon
as possible; and, accordingly, she brought a
hail-storm of good reasons to bear upon
Susan's. Susan did not reply for a long time;
she was so indignant at this intermeddling of
a stranger in the deep family sorrow and
shame. Mrs. Gale thought she was gaining
the day, and urged her arguments more pitilessly.
Even Michael winced for Susan, and
wondered at her silence. He shrunk out of
sight, and into the shadow, hoping that his
sister might prevail, but annoyed at the
hard way in which she kept putting the case.

Suddenly Susan turned round from the
occupation she had pretended to be engaged
in, and said to him in a low voice, which yet
not only vibrated itself, but made its hearers
vibrate through all their obtuseness:

"Michael Hurst! does your sister speak
truth, think you ?"

Both women looked at him for his answer;
Mrs. Gale without anxiety, for had she not
said the very words they had spoken together
before; had she not used the very arguments
that he himself had suggested?  Susan, on
the contrary, looked to his answer as settling
her doom for life; and in the gloom of her
eyes you might have read more despair than
hope.

He shuffled his position. He shuffled in
his words.

"What is it you ask? My sister has said
many things."

"I ask you," said Susan, trying to give a
crystal clearness both to her expressions and
her pronunciation "if, knowing as you do
how Will is afflicted, you will help me to
take that charge of him that I promised my
mother on her death-bed that I would do;
and which means, that I shall keep him
always with me, and do all in my power to
make his life happy. If you will do this,
I will be your wife; if not, I remain unwed."

"But he may get dangerous; he can be
but a trouble; his being here is a pain to
you, Susan, not a pleasure."

"I ask you for either yes or no," said she,
a little contempt at his evading her question