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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Parson's Daughter of Oxney Colne, by
+Anthony Trollope
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Parson's Daughter of Oxney Colne
+
+
+Author: Anthony Trollope
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 16, 2015  [eBook #3717]
+[This file was first posted on August 7, 2001]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PARSON'S DAUGHTER OF OXNEY
+COLNE***
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1864 Chapman and Hall “Tales of All Countries”
+edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
+
+
+
+
+
+                  THE PARSON’S DAUGHTER OF OXNEY COLNE.
+
+
+THE prettiest scenery in all England—and if I am contradicted in that
+assertion, I will say in all Europe—is in Devonshire, on the southern and
+south-eastern skirts of Dartmoor, where the rivers Dart, and Avon, and
+Teign form themselves, and where the broken moor is half cultivated, and
+the wild-looking upland fields are half moor.  In making this assertion I
+am often met with much doubt, but it is by persons who do not really know
+the locality.  Men and women talk to me on the matter, who have travelled
+down the line of railway from Exeter to Plymouth, who have spent a
+fortnight at Torquay, and perhaps made an excursion from Tavistock to the
+convict prison on Dartmoor.  But who knows the glories of Chagford?  Who
+has walked through the parish of Manaton?  Who is conversant with
+Lustleigh Cleeves and Withycombe in the moor?  Who has explored Holne
+Chase?  Gentle reader, believe me that you will be rash in contradicting
+me, unless you have done these things.
+
+There or thereabouts—I will not say by the waters of which little river
+it is washed—is the parish of Oxney Colne.  And for those who wish to see
+all the beauties of this lovely country, a sojourn in Oxney Colne would
+be most desirable, seeing that the sojourner would then be brought nearer
+to all that he would wish to visit, than at any other spot in the
+country.  But there in an objection to any such arrangement.  There are
+only two decent houses in the whole parish, and these are—or were when I
+knew the locality—small and fully occupied by their possessors.  The
+larger and better is the parsonage, in which lived the parson and his
+daughter; and the smaller is a freehold residence of a certain Miss Le
+Smyrger, who owned a farm of a hundred acres, which was rented by one
+Farmer Cloysey, and who also possessed some thirty acres round her own
+house, which she managed herself; regarding herself to be quite as great
+in cream as Mr. Cloysey, and altogether superior to him in the article of
+cyder.  “But yeu has to pay no rent, Miss,” Farmer Cloysey would say,
+when Miss Le Smyrger expressed this opinion of her art in a manner too
+defiant.  “Yeu pays no rent, or yeu couldn’t do it.”  Miss Le Smyrger was
+an old maid, with a pedigree and blood of her own, a hundred and thirty
+acres of fee-simple land on the borders of Dartmoor, fifty years of age,
+a constitution of iron, and an opinion of her own on every subject under
+the sun.
+
+And now for the parson and his daughter.  The parson’s name was
+Woolsworthy—or Woolathy, as it was pronounced by all those who lived
+around him—the Rev. Saul Woolsworthy; and his daughter was Patience
+Woolsworthy, or Miss Patty, as she was known to the Devonshire world of
+those parts.  That name of Patience had not been well chosen for her, for
+she was a hot-tempered damsel, warm in her convictions, and inclined to
+express them freely.  She had but two closely intimate friends in the
+world, and by both of them this freedom of expression had now been fully
+permitted to her since she was a child.  Miss Le Smyrger and her father
+were well accustomed to her ways, and on the whole well satisfied with
+them.  The former was equally free and equally warm-tempered as herself,
+and as Mr. Woolsworthy was allowed by his daughter to be quite paramount
+on his own subject—for he had a subject—he did not object to his daughter
+being paramount on all others.  A pretty girl was Patience Woolsworthy at
+the time of which I am writing, and one who possessed much that was
+worthy of remark and admiration, had she lived where beauty meets with
+admiration, or where force of character is remarked.  But at Oxney Colne,
+on the borders of Dartmoor, there were few to appreciate her, and it
+seemed as though she herself had but little idea of carrying her talent
+further afield, so that it might not remain for ever wrapped in a
+blanket.
+
+She was a pretty girl, tall end slender, with dark eyes and black hair.
+Her eyes were perhaps too round for regular beauty, and her hair was
+perhaps too crisp; her mouth was large and expressive; her nose was
+finely formed, though a critic in female form might have declared it to
+be somewhat broad.  But her countenance altogether was wonderfully
+attractive—if only it might be seen without that resolution for dominion
+which occasionally marred it, though sometimes it even added to her
+attractions.
+
+It must be confessed on behalf of Patience Woolsworthy, that the
+circumstances of her life had peremptorily called upon her to exercise
+dominion.  She had lost her mother when she was sixteen, and had had
+neither brother nor sister.  She had no neighbours near her fit either
+from education or rank to interfere in the conduct of her life, excepting
+always Miss La Smyrger.  Miss Le Smyrger would have done anything for
+her, including the whole management of her morals and of the parsonage
+household, had Patience been content with such an arrangement.  But much
+as Patience had ever loved Miss Le Smyrger, she was not content with
+this, and therefore she had been called on to put forth a strong hand of
+her own.  She had put forth this strong hand early, and hence had come
+the character which I am attempting to describe.  But I must say on
+behalf of this girl, that it was not only over others that she thus
+exercised dominion.  In acquiring that power she had also acquired the
+much greater power of exercising rule over herself.
+
+But why should her father have been ignored in these family arrangements?
+Perhaps it may almost suffice to say, that of all living men her father
+was the man best conversant with the antiquities of the county in which
+he lived.  He was the Jonathan Oldbuck of Devonshire, and especially of
+Dartmoor, without that decision of character which enabled Oldbuck to
+keep his womenkind in some kind of subjection, and probably enabled him
+also to see that his weekly bills did not pass their proper limits.  Our
+Mr. Oldbuck, of Oxney Colne, was sadly deficient in these.  As a parish
+pastor with but a small cure, he did his duty with sufficient energy, to
+keep him, at any rate, from reproach.  He was kind and charitable to the
+poor, punctual in his services, forbearing with the farmers around him,
+mild with his brother clergymen, and indifferent to aught that bishop or
+archdeacon might think or say of him.  I do not name this latter
+attribute as a virtue, but as a fact.  But all these points were as
+nothing in the known character of Mr. Woolsworthy, of Oxney Colne.  He
+was the antiquarian of Dartmoor.  That was his line of life.  It was in
+that capacity that he was known to the Devonshire world; it was as such
+that he journeyed about with his humble carpet-bag, staying away from his
+parsonage a night or two at a time; it was in that character that he
+received now and again stray visitors in the single spare bedroom—not
+friends asked to see him and his girl because of their friendship—but men
+who knew something as to this buried stone, or that old land-mark.  In
+all these things his daughter let him have his own way, assisting and
+encouraging him.  That was his line of life, and therefore she respected
+it.  But in all other matters she chose to be paramount at the parsonage.
+
+Mr. Woolsworthy was a little man, who always wore, except on Sundays,
+grey clothes—clothes of so light a grey that they would hardly have been
+regarded as clerical in a district less remote.  He had now reached a
+goodly age, being full seventy years old; but still he was wiry and
+active, and showed but few symptoms of decay.  His head was bald, and the
+few remaining locks that surrounded it were nearly white.  But there was
+a look of energy about his mouth, and a humour in his light grey eye,
+which forbade those who knew him to regard him altogether as an old man.
+As it was, he could walk from Oxney Colne to Priestown, fifteen long
+Devonshire miles across the moor; and he who could do that could hardly
+be regarded as too old for work.
+
+But our present story will have more to do with his daughter than with
+him.  A pretty girl, I have said, was Patience Woolsworthy; and one, too,
+in many ways remarkable.  She had taken her outlook into life, weighing
+the things which she had and those which she had not, in a manner very
+unusual, and, as a rule, not always desirable for a young lady.  The
+things which she had not were very many.  She had not society; she had
+not a fortune; she had not any assurance of future means of livelihood;
+she had not high hope of procuring for herself a position in life by
+marriage; she had not that excitement and pleasure in life which she read
+of in such books as found their way down to Oxney Colne Parsonage.  It
+would be easy to add to the list of the things which she had not; and
+this list against herself she made out with the utmost vigour.  The
+things which she had, or those rather which she assured herself of
+having, were much more easily counted.  She had the birth and education
+of a lady, the strength of a healthy woman, and a will of her own.  Such
+was the list as she made it out for herself, and I protest that I assert
+no more than the truth in saying that she never added to it either
+beauty, wit, or talent.
+
+I began these descriptions by saying that Oxney Colne would, of all
+places, be the best spot from which a tourist could visit those parts of
+Devonshire, but for the fact that he could obtain there none of the
+accommodation which tourists require.  A brother antiquarian might,
+perhaps, in those days have done so, seeing that there was, as I have
+said, a spare bedroom at the parsonage.  Any intimate friend of Miss Le
+Smyrger’s might be as fortunate, for she was equally well provided at
+Oxney Combe, by which name her house was known.  But Miss Le Smyrger was
+not given to extensive hospitality, and it was only to those who were
+bound to her, either by ties of blood or of very old friendship, that she
+delighted to open her doors.  As her old friends were very few in number,
+as those few lived at a distance, and as her nearest relations were
+higher in the world than she was, and were said by herself to look down
+upon her, the visits made to Oxney Combe were few and far between.
+
+But now, at the period of which I am writing, such a visit was about to
+be made.  Miss Le Smyrger had a younger sister, who had inherited a
+property in the parish of Oxney Colne equal to that of the lady who now
+lived there; but this the younger sister had inherited beauty also, and
+she therefore, in early life, had found sundry lovers, one of whom became
+her husband.  She had married a man even then well to do in the world,
+but now rich and almost mighty; a Member of Parliament, a lord of this
+and that board, a man who had a house in Eaton Square, and a park in the
+north of England; and in this way her course of life had been very much
+divided from that of our Miss Le Smyrger.  But the Lord of the Government
+Board had been blessed with various children; and perhaps it was now
+thought expedient to look after Aunt Penelope’s Devonshire acres.  Aunt
+Penelope was empowered to leave them to whom she pleased; and though it
+was thought in Eaton Square that she must, as a matter of course, leave
+them to one of the family, nevertheless a little cousinly intercourse
+might make the thing more certain.  I will not say that this was the sole
+cause of such a visit, but in these days a visit was to be made by
+Captain Broughton to his aunt.  Now Captain John Broughton was the second
+son of Alfonso Broughton, of Clapham Park and Eaton Square, Member of
+Parliament, and Lord of the aforesaid Government Board.
+
+“And what do you mean to do with him?” Patience Woolsworthy asked of Miss
+Le Smyrger when that lady walked over from the Combe to say that her
+nephew John was to arrive on the following morning.
+
+“Do with him?  Why I shall bring him over here to talk to your father.”
+
+“He’ll be too fashionable for that; and papa won’t trouble his head about
+him if he finds that he doesn’t care for Dartmoor.”
+
+“Then he may fall in love with you, my dear.”
+
+“Well, yes; there’s that resource at any rate, and for your sake I dare
+say I should be more civil to him than papa.  But he’ll soon get tired of
+making love, and what you’ll do then I cannot imagine.”
+
+That Miss Woolsworthy felt no interest in the coming of the Captain I
+will not pretend to say.  The advent of any stranger with whom she would
+be called on to associate must be matter of interest to her in that
+secluded place; and she was not so absolutely unlike other young ladies
+that the arrival of an unmarried young man would be the same to her as
+the advent of some patriarchal paterfamilias.  In taking that outlook
+into life of which I have spoken, she had never said to herself that she
+despised those things from which other girls received the excitement, the
+joys, and the disappointment of their lives.  She had simply given
+herself to understand that very little of such things would come her way,
+and that it behoved her to live—to live happily if such might be
+possible—without experiencing the need of them.  She had heard, when
+there was no thought of any such visit to Oxney Colne, that John
+Broughton was a handsome, clever man—one who thought much of himself, and
+was thought much of by others—that there had been some talk of his
+marrying a great heiress, which marriage, however, had not taken place
+through unwillingness on his part, and that he was on the whole a man of
+more mark in the world than the ordinary captain of ordinary regiments.
+
+Captain Broughton came to Oxney Combe, stayed there a fortnight,—the
+intended period for his projected visit having been fixed at three or
+four days,—and then went his way.  He went his way back to his London
+haunts, the time of the year then being the close of the Easter holidays;
+but as he did so he told his aunt that he should assuredly return to her
+in the autumn.
+
+“And assuredly I shall be happy to see you, John—if you come with a
+certain purpose.  If you have no such purpose, you had better remain
+away.”
+
+“I shall assuredly come,” the Captain had replied, and then he had gone
+on his journey.
+
+The summer passed rapidly by, and very little was said between Miss Le
+Smyrger and Miss Woolsworthy about Captain Broughton.  In many
+respects—nay, I may say, as to all ordinary matters, no two women could
+well be more intimate with each other than they were,—and more than that,
+they had the courage each to talk to the other with absolute truth as to
+things concerning themselves—a courage in which dear friends often fail.
+But nevertheless, very little was said between them about Captain John
+Broughton.  All that was said may be here repeated.
+
+“John says that he shall return here in August,” Miss Le Smyrger said, as
+Patience was sitting with her in the parlour at Oxney Combe, on the
+morning after that gentleman’s departure.
+
+“He told me so himself,” said Patience; and as she spoke her round dark
+eyes assumed a look of more than ordinary self-will.  If Miss Le Smyrger
+had intended to carry the conversation any further, she changed her mind
+as she looked at her companion.  Then, as I said, the summer ran by, and
+towards the close of the warm days of July, Miss Le Smyrger, sitting in
+the same chair in the same room, again took up the conversation.
+
+“I got a letter from John this morning.  He says that he shall be here on
+the third.”
+
+“Does he?”
+
+“He is very punctual to the time he named.”
+
+“Yes; I fancy that he is a punctual man,” said Patience.
+
+“I hope that you will be glad to see him,” said Miss Le Smyrger.
+
+“Very glad to see him,” said Patience, with a bold clear voice; and then
+the conversation was again dropped, and nothing further was said till
+after Captain Broughton’s second arrival in the parish.
+
+Four months had then passed since his departure, and during that time
+Miss Woolsworthy had performed all her usual daily duties in their
+accustomed course.  No one could discover that she had been less careful
+in her household matters than had been her wont, less willing to go among
+her poor neighbours, or less assiduous in her attentions to her father.
+But not the less was there a feeling in the minds of those around her
+that some great change had come upon her.  She would sit during the long
+summer evenings on a certain spot outside the parsonage orchard, at the
+top of a small sloping field in which their solitary cow was always
+pastured, with a book on her knees before her, but rarely reading.  There
+she would sit, with the beautiful view down to the winding river below
+her, watching the setting sun, and thinking, thinking, thinking—thinking
+of something of which she had never spoken.  Often would Miss Le Smyrger
+come upon her there, and sometimes would pass by her even without a word;
+but never—never once did she dare to ask her of the matter of her
+thoughts.  But she knew the matter well enough.  No confession was
+necessary to inform her that Patience Woolsworthy was in love with John
+Broughton—ay, in love, to the full and entire loss of her whole heart.
+
+On one evening she was so sitting till the July sun had fallen and hidden
+himself for the night, when her father came upon her as he returned from
+one of his rambles on the moor.  “Patty,” he said, “you are always
+sitting there now.  Is it not late?  Will you not be cold?”
+
+“No, papa,” said she, “I shall not be cold.”
+
+“But won’t you come to the house?  I miss you when you come in so late
+that there’s no time to say a word before we go to bed.”
+
+She got up and followed him into the parsonage, and when they were in the
+sitting-room together, and the door was closed, she came up to him and
+kissed him.  “Papa,” she said, “would it make you very unhappy if I were
+to leave you?”
+
+“Leave me!” he said, startled by the serious and almost solemn tone of
+her voice.  “Do you mean for always?”
+
+“If I were to marry, papa?”
+
+“Oh, marry!  No; that would not make me unhappy.  It would make me very
+happy, Patty, to see you married to a man you would love—very, very
+happy; though my days would be desolate without you.”
+
+“That is it, papa.  What would you do if I went from you?”
+
+“What would it matter, Patty?  I should be free, at any rate, from a load
+which often presses heavy on me now.  What will you do when I shall leave
+you?  A few more years and all will be over with me.  But who is it,
+love?  Has anybody said anything to you?”
+
+“It was only an idea, papa.  I don’t often think of such a thing; but I
+did think of it then.”  And so the subject was allowed to pass by.  This
+had happened before the day of the second arrival had been absolutely
+fixed and made known to Miss Woolsworthy.
+
+And then that second arrival took place.  The reader may have understood
+from the words with which Miss Le Smyrger authorised her nephew to make
+his second visit to Oxney Combe that Miss Woolsworthy’s passion was not
+altogether unauthorised.  Captain Broughton had been told that he was not
+to come unless he came with a certain purpose; and having been so told,
+he still persisted in coming.  There can be no doubt but that he well
+understood the purport to which his aunt alluded.  “I shall assuredly
+come,” he had said.  And true to his word, he was now there.
+
+Patience knew exactly the hour at which he must arrive at the station at
+Newton Abbot, and the time also which it would take to travel over those
+twelve uphill miles from the station to Oxney.  It need hardly be said
+that she paid no visit to Miss Le Smyrger’s house on that afternoon; but
+she might have known something of Captain Broughton’s approach without
+going thither.  His road to the Combe passed by the parsonage-gate, and
+had Patience sat even at her bedroom window she must have seen him.  But
+on such a morning she would not sit at her bedroom window—she would do
+nothing which would force her to accuse herself of a restless longing for
+her lover’s coming.  It was for him to seek her.  If he chose to do so,
+he knew the way to the parsonage.
+
+Miss Le Smyrger—good, dear, honest, hearty Miss Le Smyrger, was in a
+fever of anxiety on behalf of her friend.  It was not that she wished her
+nephew to marry Patience—or rather that she had entertained any such wish
+when he first came,—among them.  She was not given to match-making, and
+moreover thought, or had thought within herself, that they of Oxney Colne
+could do very well without any admixture from Eaton Square.  Her plan of
+life had been that, when old Mr. Woolsworthy was taken away from
+Dartmoor, Patience should live with her; and that when she also shuffled
+off her coil, then Patience Woolsworthy should be the maiden mistress of
+Oxney Combe—of Oxney Combe and Mr. Cloysey’s farm—to the utter detriment
+of all the Broughtons.  Such had been her plan before nephew John had
+come among them—a plan not to be spoken of till the coming of that dark
+day which should make Patience an orphan.  But now her nephew had been
+there, and all was to be altered.  Miss Le Smyrger’s plan would have
+provided a companion for her old age; but that had not been her chief
+object.  She had thought more of Patience than of herself, and now it
+seemed that a prospect of a higher happiness was opening for her friend.
+
+“John,” she said, as soon as the first greetings were over, “do you
+remember the last words that I said to you before you went away?”  Now,
+for myself, I much admire Miss Le Smyrger’s heartiness, but I do not
+think much of her discretion.  It would have been better, perhaps, had
+she allowed things to take their course.
+
+“I can’t say that I do,” said the Captain.  At the same time the Captain
+did remember very well what those last words had been.
+
+“I am so glad to see you, so delighted to see you, if—if—if—,” and then
+she paused, for with all her courage she hardly dared to ask her nephew
+whether he had come there with the express purpose of asking Miss
+Woolsworthy to marry him.
+
+To tell the truth, for there is no room for mystery within the limits of
+this short story,—to tell, I say, at a word the plain and simple truth,
+Captain Broughton had already asked that question.  On the day before he
+left Oxney Come, he had in set terms proposed to the parson’s daughter,
+and indeed the words, the hot and frequent words, which previously to
+that had fallen like sweetest honey into the ears of Patience
+Woolsworthy, had made it imperative on him to do so.  When a man in such
+a place as that has talked to a girl of love day after day, must not he
+talk of it to some definite purpose on the day on which he leaves her?
+Or if he do not, must he not submit to be regarded as false, selfish, and
+almost fraudulent?  Captain Broughton, however, had asked the question
+honestly and truly.  He had done so honestly and truly, but in words, or,
+perhaps, simply with a tone, that had hardly sufficed to satisfy the
+proud spirit of the girl he loved.  She by that time had confessed to
+herself that she loved him with all her heart; but she had made no such
+confession to him.  To him she had spoken no word, granted no favour,
+that any lover might rightfully regard as a token of love returned.  She
+had listened to him as he spoke, and bade him keep such sayings for the
+drawing-rooms of his fashionable friends.  Then he had spoken out and had
+asked for that hand,—not, perhaps, as a suitor tremulous with hope,—but
+as a rich man who knows that he can command that which he desires to
+purchase.
+
+“You should think more of this,” she had said to him at last.  “If you
+would really have me for your wife, it will not be much to you to return
+here again when time for thinking of it shall have passed by.”  With
+these words she had dismissed him, and now he had again come back to
+Oxney Colne.  But still she would not place herself at the window to look
+for him, nor dress herself in other than her simple morning country
+dress, nor omit one item of her daily work.  If he wished to take her at
+all, he should wish to take her as she really was, in her plain country
+life, but he should take her also with full observance of all those
+privileges which maidens are allowed to claim from their lovers.  He
+should contract no ceremonious observance because she was the daughter of
+a poor country parson who would come to him without a shilling, whereas
+he stood high in the world’s books.  He had asked her to give him all
+that she had, and that all she was ready to give, without stint.  But the
+gift must be valued before it could be given or received, he also was to
+give her as much, and she would accept it as beyond all price.  But she
+would not allow that that which was offered to her was in any degree the
+more precious because of his outward worldly standing.
+
+She would not pretend to herself that she thought he would come to her
+that day, and therefore she busied herself in the kitchen and about the
+house, giving directions to her two maids as though the afternoon would
+pass as all other days did pass in that household.  They usually dined at
+four, and she rarely in these summer months went far from the house
+before that hour.  At four precisely she sat down with her father, and
+then said that she was going up as far as Helpholme after dinner.
+Helpholme was a solitary farmhouse in another parish, on the border of
+the moor, and Mr. Woolsworthy asked her whether he should accompany her.
+
+“Do, papa,” she said, “if you are not too tired.”  And yet she had
+thought how probable it might be that she should meet John Broughton on
+her walk.  And so it was arranged; but just as dinner was over, Mr.
+Woolsworthy remembered himself.
+
+“Gracious me,” he said, “how my memory is going.  Gribbles, from
+Ivybridge, and old John Poulter, from Bovey, are coming to meet here by
+appointment.  You can’t put Helpholme off till to-morrow?”
+
+Patience, however, never put off anything, and therefore at six o’clock,
+when her father had finished his slender modicum of toddy, she tied on
+her hat and went on her walk.  She started with a quick step, and left no
+word to say by which route she would go.  As she passed up along the
+little lane which led towards Oxney Combe, she would not even look to see
+if he was coming towards her; and when she left the road, passing over a
+stone stile into a little path which ran first through the upland fields,
+and then across the moor ground towards Helpholme, she did not look back
+once, or listen for his coming step.
+
+She paid her visit, remaining upwards of an hour with the old bedridden
+mother of the tenant of Helpholme.  “God bless you, my darling!” said the
+old woman as she left her; “and send you some one to make your own path
+bright and happy through the world.”  These words were still ringing in
+her ears with all their significance as she saw John Broughton waiting
+for her at the first stile which she had to pass after leaving the
+farmer’s haggard.
+
+“Patty,” he said, as he took her hand, and held it close within both his
+own, “what a chase I have had after you!”
+
+“And who asked you, Captain Broughton?” she answered, smiling.  “If the
+journey was too much for your poor London strength, could you not have
+waited till to-morrow morning, when you would have found me at the
+parsonage?”  But she did not draw her hand away from him, or in any way
+pretend that he had not a right to accost her as a lover.
+
+“No, I could not wait.  I am more eager to see those I love than you seem
+to be.”
+
+“How do you know whom I love, or how eager I might be to see them?  There
+is an old woman there whom I love, and I have thought nothing of this
+walk with the object of seeing her.”  And now, slowly drawing her hand
+away from him, she pointed to the farmhouse which she had left.
+
+“Patty,” he said, after a minute’s pause, during which she had looked
+full into his face with all the force of her bright eyes; “I have come
+from London to-day, straight down here to Oxney, and from my aunt’s house
+close upon your footsteps after you, to ask you that one question—Do you
+love me?”
+
+“What a Hercules!” she said, again laughing.  “Do you really mean that
+you left London only this morning?  Why, you must have been five hours in
+a railway carriage and two in a postchaise, not to talk of the walk
+afterwards.  You ought to take more care of yourself, Captain Broughton!”
+
+He would have been angry with her—for he did not like to be quizzed—had
+she not put her hand on his arm as she spoke, and the softness of her
+touch had redeemed the offence of her words.
+
+“All that I have done,” said he, “that I may hear one word from you.”
+
+“That any word of mine should have such potency!  But let us walk on, or
+my father will take us for some of the standing stones of the moor.  How
+have you found your aunt?  If you only knew the cares that have sat on
+her dear shoulders for the last week past, in order that your high
+mightiness might have a sufficiency to eat and drink in these desolate
+half-starved regions!”
+
+“She might have saved herself such anxiety.  No one can care less for
+such things than I do.”
+
+“And yet I think I have heard you boast of the cook of your club.”  And
+then again there was silence for a minute or two.
+
+“Patty,” said he, stopping again in the path; “answer my question.  I
+have a right to demand an answer.  Do you love me?”
+
+“And what if I do?  What if I have been so silly as to allow your
+perfections to be too many for my weak heart?  What then, Captain
+Broughton?”
+
+“It cannot be that you love me, or you would not joke now.”
+
+“Perhaps not, indeed,” she said.  It seemed as though she were resolved
+not to yield an inch in her own humour.  And then again they walked on.
+
+“Patty,” he said once more, “I shall get an answer from you
+to-night,—this evening; now, during this walk, or I shall return
+to-morrow, and never revisit this spot again.”
+
+“Oh, Captain Broughton, how should we ever manage to live without you?”
+
+“Very well,” he said; “up to the end of this walk I can hear it all;—and
+one word spoken then will mend it all.”
+
+During the whole of this time she felt that she was ill-using him.  She
+knew that she loved him with all her heart; that it would nearly kill her
+to part with him; that she had heard his renewed offer with an ecstacy of
+joy.  She acknowledged to herself that he was giving proof of his
+devotion as strong as any which a girl could receive from her lover.  And
+yet she could hardly bring herself to say the word he longed to hear.
+That word once said, and then she knew that she must succumb to her love
+for ever!  That word once said, and there would be nothing for her but to
+spoil him with her idolatry!  That word once said, and she must continue
+to repeat it into his ears, till perhaps he might be tired of hearing it!
+And now he had threatened her, and how could she speak after that?  She
+certainly would not speak it unless he asked her again without such
+threat.  And so they walked on in silence.
+
+“Patty,” he said at last.  “By the heavens above us you shall answer me.
+Do you love me?”
+
+She now stood still, and almost trembled as she looked up into his face.
+She stood opposite to him for a moment, and then placing her two hands on
+his shoulders, she answered him.  “I do, I do, I do,” she said, “with all
+my heart; with all my heart—with all my heart and strength.”  And then
+her head fell upon his breast.
+
+* * *
+
+Captain Broughton was almost as much surprised as delighted by the warmth
+of the acknowledgment made by the eager-hearted passionate girl whom he
+now held within his arms.  She had said it now; the words had been
+spoken; and there was nothing for her but to swear to him over and over
+again with her sweetest oaths, that those words were true—true as her
+soul.  And very sweet was the walk down from thence to the parsonage
+gate.  He spoke no more of the distance of the ground, or the length of
+his day’s journey.  But he stopped her at every turn that he might press
+her arm the closer to his own, that he might look into the brightness of
+her eyes, and prolong his hour of delight.  There were no more gibes now
+on her tongue, no raillery at his London finery, no laughing comments on
+his coming and going.  With downright honesty she told him everything:
+how she had loved him before her heart was warranted in such a passion;
+how, with much thinking, she had resolved that it would be unwise to take
+him at his first word, and had thought it better that he should return to
+London, and then think over it; how she had almost repented of her
+courage when she had feared, during those long summer days, that he would
+forget her; and how her heart had leapt for joy when her old friend had
+told her that he was coming.
+
+“And yet,” said he, “you were not glad to see me!”
+
+“Oh, was I not glad?  You cannot understand the feelings of a girl who
+has lived secluded as I have done.  Glad is no word for the joy I felt.
+But it was not seeing you that I cared for so much.  It was the knowledge
+that you were near me once again.  I almost wish now that I had not seen
+you till to-morrow.”  But as she spoke she pressed his arm, and this
+caress gave the lie to her last words.
+
+“No, do not come in to-night,” she said, when she reached the little
+wicket that led up to the parsonage.  “Indeed, you shall not.  I could
+not behave myself properly if you did.”
+
+“But I don’t want you to behave properly.”
+
+“Oh!  I am to keep that for London, am I?  But, nevertheless, Captain
+Broughton, I will not invite you either to tea or to supper to-night.”
+
+“Surely I may shake hands with your father.”
+
+“Not to-night—not till—John, I may tell him, may I not?  I must tell him
+at once.”
+
+“Certainly,” said he.
+
+“And then you shall see him to-morrow.  Let me see—at what hour shall I
+bid you come?”
+
+“To breakfast.”
+
+“No, indeed.  What on earth would your aunt do with her broiled turkey
+and the cold pie?  I have got no cold pie for you.”
+
+“I hate cold pie.”
+
+“What a pity!  But, John, I should be forced to leave you directly after
+breakfast.  Come down—come down at two, or three; and then I will go back
+with you to Aunt Penelope.  I must see her to-morrow;” and so at last the
+matter was settled, and the happy Captain, as he left her, was hardly
+resisted in his attempt to press her lips to his own.
+
+When she entered the parlour in which her father was sitting, there still
+were Gribbles and Poulter discussing some knotty point of Devon lore.  So
+Patience took off her hat, and sat herself down, waiting till they should
+go.  For full an hour she had to wait, and then Gribbles and Poulter did
+go.  But it was not in such matters as this that Patience Woolsworthy was
+impatient.  She could wait, and wait, and wait, curbing herself for weeks
+and months, while the thing waited for was in her eyes good; but she
+could not curb her hot thoughts or her hot words when things came to be
+discussed which she did not think to be good.
+
+“Papa,” she said, when Gribbles’ long-drawn last word had been spoken at
+the door.  “Do you remember how I asked you the other day what you would
+say if I were to leave you?”
+
+“Yes, surely,” he replied, looking up at her in astonishment.
+
+“I am going to leave you now,” she said.  “Dear, dearest father, how am I
+to go from you?”
+
+“Going to leave me,” said he, thinking of her visit to Helpholme, and
+thinking of nothing else.
+
+Now, there had been a story about Helpholme.  That bedridden old lady
+there had a stalwart son, who was now the owner of the Helpholme
+pastures.  But though owner in fee of all those wild acres, and of the
+cattle which they supported, he was not much above the farmers around
+him, either in manners or education.  He had his merits, however; for he
+was honest, well-to-do in the world, and modest withal.  How strong love
+had grown up, springing from neighbourly kindness, between our Patience
+and his mother, it needs not here to tell; but rising from it had come
+another love—or an ambition which might have grown to love.  The young
+man, after much thought, had not dared to speak to Miss Woolsworthy, but
+he had sent a message by Miss Le Smyrger.  If there could be any hope for
+him, he would present himself as a suitor—on trial.  He did not owe a
+shilling in the world, and had money by him—saved.  He wouldn’t ask the
+parson for a shilling of fortune.  Such had been the tenor of his
+message, and Miss Le Smyrger had delivered it faithfully.  “He does not
+mean it,” Patience had said with her stern voice.  “Indeed he does, my
+dear.  You may be sure he is in earnest,” Miss Le Smyrger had replied;
+“and there is not an honester man in these parts.”
+
+“Tell him,” said Patience, not attending to the latter portion of her
+friend’s last speech, “that it cannot be—make him understand, you
+know—and tell him also that the matter shall be thought of no more.”  The
+matter had, at any rate, been spoken of no more, but the young farmer
+still remained a bachelor, and Helpholme still wanted a mistress.  But
+all this came back upon the parson’s mind when his daughter told him that
+she was about to leave him.
+
+“Yes, dearest,” she said; and as she spoke she now knelt at his knees.
+“I have been asked in marriage, and I have given myself away.”
+
+“Well, my love, if you will be happy—”
+
+“I hope I shall; I think I shall.  But you, papa?”
+
+“You will not be far from us.”
+
+“Oh, yes; in London.”
+
+“In London?”
+
+“Captain Broughton lives in London generally.”
+
+“And has Captain Broughton asked you to marry him?”
+
+“Yes, papa—who else?  Is he not good?  Will you not love him?  Oh, papa,
+do not say that I am wrong to love him?”
+
+He never told her his mistake, or explained to her that he had not
+thought it possible that the high-placed son of the London great man
+should have fallen in love with his undowered daughter; but he embraced
+her, and told her, with all his enthusiasm, that he rejoiced in her joy,
+and would be happy in her happiness.  “My own Patty,” he said, “I have
+ever known that you were too good for this life of ours here.”  And then
+the evening wore away into the night, with many tears, but still with
+much happiness.
+
+Captain Broughton, as he walked back to Oxney Combe, made up his mind
+that he would say nothing on the matter to his aunt till the next
+morning.  He wanted to think over it all, and to think it over, if
+possible, by himself.  He had taken a step in life, the most important
+that a man is ever called on to take, and he had to reflect whether or no
+he had taken it with wisdom.
+
+“Have you seen her?” said Miss Le Smyrger, very anxiously, when he came
+into the drawing-room.
+
+“Miss Woolsworthy you mean,” said he.  “Yes, I’ve seen her.  As I found
+her out, I took a long walk, and happened to meet her.  Do you know,
+aunt, I think I’ll go to bed; I was up at five this morning, and have
+been on the move ever since.”
+
+Miss Le Smyrger perceived that she was to hear nothing that evening, so
+she handed him his candlestick and allowed him to go to his room.
+
+But Captain Broughton did not immediately retire to bed, nor when he did
+so was he able to sleep at once.  Had this step that he had taken been a
+wise one?  He was not a man who, in worldly matters, had allowed things
+to arrange themselves for him, as is the case with so many men.  He had
+formed views for himself, and had a theory of life.  Money for money’s
+sake he had declared to himself to be bad.  Money, as a concomitant to
+things which were in themselves good, he had declared to himself to be
+good also.  That concomitant in this affair of his marriage, he had now
+missed.  Well; he had made up his mind to that, and would put up with the
+loss.  He had means of living of his own, the means not so extensive as
+might have been desirable.  That it would be well for him to become a
+married man, looking merely to the state of life as opposed to his
+present state, he had fully resolved.  On that point, therefore, there
+was nothing to repent.  That Patty Woolsworthy was good, affectionate,
+clever, and beautiful, he was sufficiently satisfied.  It would be odd
+indeed if he were not so satisfied now, seeing that for the last four
+months he had so declared to himself daily with many inward
+asseverations.  And yet though he repeated, now again, that he was
+satisfied, I do not think that he was so fully satisfied of it as he had
+been throughout the whole of those four months.  It is sad to say so, but
+I fear—I fear that such was the case.  When you have your plaything, how
+much of the anticipated pleasure vanishes, especially if it be won
+easily.
+
+He had told none of his family what were his intentions in this second
+visit to Devonshire, and now he had to bethink himself whether they would
+be satisfied.  What would his sister say, she who had married the
+Honourable Augustus Gumbleton, gold-stick-in-waiting to Her Majesty’s
+Privy Council?  Would she receive Patience with open arms, and make much
+of her about London?  And then how far would London suit Patience, or
+would Patience suit London?  There would be much for him to do in
+teaching her, and it would be well for him to set about the lesson
+without loss of time.  So far he got that night, but when the morning
+came he went a step further, and began mentally to criticise her manner
+to himself.  It had been very sweet, that warm, that full, that ready
+declaration of love.  Yes; it had been very sweet; but—but—; when, after
+her little jokes, she did confess her love, had she not been a little too
+free for feminine excellence?  A man likes to be told that he is loved,
+but he hardly wishes that the girl he is to marry should fling herself at
+his head!
+
+Ah me! yes; it was thus he argued to himself as on that morning he went
+through the arrangements of his toilet.  “Then he was a brute,” you say,
+my pretty reader.  I have never said that he was not a brute.  But this I
+remark, that many such brutes are to be met with in the beaten paths of
+the world’s highway.  When Patience Woolsworthy had answered him coldly,
+bidding him go back to London and think over his love; while it seemed
+from her manner that at any rate as yet she did not care for him; while
+he was absent from her, and, therefore, longing for her, the possession
+of her charms, her talent and bright honesty of purpose had seemed to him
+a thing most desirable.  Now they were his own.  They had, in fact, been
+his own from the first.  The heart of this country-bred girl had fallen
+at the first word from his mouth.  Had she not so confessed to him?  She
+was very nice—very nice indeed.  He loved her dearly.  But had he not
+sold himself too cheaply?
+
+I by no means say that he was not a brute.  But whether brute or no, he
+was an honest man, and had no remotest dream, either then, on that
+morning, or during the following days on which such thoughts pressed more
+quickly on his mind—of breaking away from his pledged word.  At breakfast
+on that morning he told all to Miss Le Smyrger, and that lady, with warm
+and gracious intentions, confided to him her purpose regarding her
+property.  “I have always regarded Patience as my heir,” she said, “and
+shall do so still.”
+
+“Oh, indeed,” said Captain Broughton.
+
+“But it is a great, great pleasure to me to think that she will give back
+the little property to my sister’s child.  You will have your mother’s,
+and thus it will all come together again.”
+
+“Ah!” said Captain Broughton.  He had his own ideas about property, and
+did not, even under existing circumstances, like to hear that his aunt
+considered herself at liberty to leave the acres away to one who was by
+blood quite a stranger to the family.
+
+“Does Patience know of this?” he asked.
+
+“Not a word,” said Miss Le Smyrger.  And then nothing more was said upon
+the subject.
+
+On that afternoon he went down and received the parson’s benediction and
+congratulations with a good grace.  Patience said very little on the
+occasion, and indeed was absent during the greater part of the interview.
+The two lovers then walked up to Oxney Combe, and there were more
+benedictions and more congratulations.  “All went merry as a marriage
+bell,” at any rate as far as Patience was concerned.  Not a word had yet
+fallen from that dear mouth, not a look had yet come over that handsome
+face, which tended in any way to mar her bliss.  Her first day of
+acknowledged love was a day altogether happy, and when she prayed for him
+as she knelt beside her bed there was no feeling in her mind that any
+fear need disturb her joy.
+
+I will pass over the next three or four days very quickly, merely saying
+that Patience did not find them so pleasant as that first day after her
+engagement.  There was something in her lover’s manner—something which at
+first she could not define—which by degrees seemed to grate against her
+feelings.
+
+He was sufficiently affectionate, that being a matter on which she did
+not require much demonstration; but joined to his affection there seemed
+to be—; she hardly liked to suggest to herself a harsh word, but could it
+be possible that he was beginning to think that she was not good enough
+for him?  And then she asked herself the question—was she good enough for
+him?  If there were doubt about that, the match should be broken off,
+though she tore her own heart out in the struggle.  The truth, however,
+was this—that he had begun that teaching which he had already found to be
+so necessary.  Now, had any one essayed to teach Patience German or
+mathematics, with that young lady’s free consent, I believe that she
+would have been found a meek scholar.  But it was not probable that she
+would be meek when she found a self-appointed tutor teaching her manners
+and conduct without her consent.
+
+So matters went on for four or five days, and on the evening of the fifth
+day Captain Broughton and his aunt drank tea at the parsonage.  Nothing
+very especial occurred; but as the parson and Miss La Smyrger insisted on
+playing backgammon with devoted perseverance during the whole evening,
+Broughton had a good opportunity of saying a word or two about those
+changes in his lady-love which a life in London would require—and some
+word he said also—some single slight word as to the higher station in
+life to which he would exalt his bride.  Patience bore it—for her father
+and Miss La Smyrger were in the room—she bore it well, speaking no
+syllable of anger, and enduring, for the moment, the implied scorn of the
+old parsonage.  Then the evening broke up, and Captain Broughton walked
+back to Oxney Combe with his aunt.  “Patty,” her father said to her
+before they went to bed, “he seems to me to be a most excellent young
+man.”  “Dear papa,” she answered, kissing him.  “And terribly deep in
+love,” said Mr. Woolsworthy.  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” she
+answered, as she left him with her sweetest smile.  But though she could
+thus smile at her father’s joke, she had already made up her mind that
+there was still something to be learned as to her promised husband before
+she could place herself altogether in his hands.  She would ask him
+whether he thought himself liable to injury from this proposed marriage;
+and though he should deny any such thought, she would know from the
+manner of his denial what his true feelings were.
+
+And he, too, on that night, during his silent walk with Miss Le Smyrger,
+had entertained some similar thoughts.  “I fear she is obstinate,” he
+said to himself; and then he had half accused her of being sullen also.
+“If that be her temper, what a life of misery I have before me!”
+
+“Have you fixed a day yet?” his aunt asked him as they came near to her
+house.
+
+“No, not yet; I don’t know whether it will suit me to fix it before I
+leave.”
+
+“Why, it was but the other day you were in such a hurry.”
+
+“Ah—yes—I have thought more about it since then.”
+
+“I should have imagined that this would depend on what Patty thinks,”
+said Miss Le Smyrger, standing up for the privileges of her sex.  “It is
+presumed that the gentleman is always ready as soon as the lady will
+consent.”
+
+“Yes, in ordinary cases it is so; but when a girl is taken out of her own
+sphere—”
+
+“Her own sphere!  Let me caution you, Master John, not to talk to Patty
+about her own sphere.”
+
+“Aunt Penelope, as Patience is to be my wife and not yours, I must claim
+permission to speak to her on such subjects as may seem suitable to me.”
+And then they parted—not in the best humour with each other.
+
+On the following day Captain Broughton and Miss Woolsworthy did not meet
+till the evening.  She had said, before those few ill-omened words had
+passed her lover’s lips, that she would probably be at Miss Le Smyrger’s
+house on the following morning.  Those ill-omened words did pass her
+lover’s lips, and then she remained at home.  This did not come from
+sullenness, nor even from anger, but from a conviction that it would be
+well that she should think much before she met him again.  Nor was he
+anxious to hurry a meeting.  His thought—his base thought—was this; that
+she would be sure to come up to the Combe after him; but she did not
+come, and therefore in the evening he went down to her, and asked her to
+walk with him.
+
+They went away by the path that led to Helpholme, and little was said
+between them till they had walked some mile together.
+
+Patience, as she went along the path, remembered almost to the letter the
+sweet words which had greeted her ears as she came down that way with him
+on the night of his arrival; but he remembered nothing of that sweetness
+then.  Had he not made an ass of himself during these last six months?
+That was the thought which very much had possession of his mind.
+
+“Patience,” he said at last, having hitherto spoken only an indifferent
+word now and again since they had left the parsonage, “Patience, I hope
+you realise the importance of the step which you and I are about to
+take?”
+
+“Of course I do,” she answered.  “What an odd question that is for you to
+ask!”
+
+“Because,” said he, “sometimes I almost doubt it.  It seems to me as
+though you thought you could remove yourself from here to your new home
+with no more trouble than when you go from home up to the Combe.”
+
+“Is that meant for a reproach, John?”
+
+“No, not for a reproach, but for advice.  Certainly not for a reproach.”
+
+“I am glad of that.”
+
+“But I should wish to make you think how great is the leap in the world
+which you are about to take.”  Then again they walked on for many steps
+before she answered him.
+
+“Tell me, then, John,” she said, when she had sufficiently considered
+what words she should speak; and as she spoke a bright colour suffused
+her face, and her eyes flashed almost with anger.  “What leap do you
+mean?  Do you mean a leap upwards?”
+
+“Well, yes; I hope it will be so.”
+
+“In one sense, certainly, it would be a leap upwards.  To be the wife of
+the man I loved; to have the privilege of holding his happiness in my
+hand; to know that I was his own—the companion whom he had chosen out of
+all the world—that would, indeed, be a leap upwards; a leap almost to
+heaven, if all that were so.  But if you mean upwards in any other
+sense—”
+
+“I was thinking of the social scale.”
+
+“Then, Captain Broughton, your thoughts were doing me dishonour.”
+
+“Doing you dishonour!”
+
+“Yes, doing me dishonour.  That your father is, in the world’s esteem, a
+greater man than mine is doubtless true enough.  That you, as a man, are
+richer than I am as a woman, is doubtless also true.  But you dishonour
+me, and yourself also, if these things can weigh with you now.”
+
+“Patience,—I think you can hardly know what words you are saying to me.”
+
+“Pardon me, but I think I do.  Nothing that you can give me—no gifts of
+that description—can weigh aught against that which I am giving you.  If
+you had all the wealth and rank of the greatest lord in the land, it
+would count as nothing in such a scale.  If—as I have not doubted—if in
+return for my heart you have given me yours, then—then—then you have paid
+me fully.  But when gifts such as those are going, nothing else can count
+even as a make-weight.”
+
+“I do not quite understand you,” he answered, after a pause.  “I fear you
+are a little high-flown.”  And then, while the evening was still early,
+they walked back to the parsonage almost without another word.
+
+Captain Broughton at this time had only one full day more to remain at
+Oxney Colne.  On the afternoon following that he was to go as far as
+Exeter, and thence return to London.  Of course, it was to be expected
+that the wedding day would be fixed before he went, and much had been
+said about it during the first day or two of his engagement.  Then he had
+pressed for an early time, and Patience, with a girl’s usual diffidence,
+had asked for some little delay.  But now nothing was said on the
+subject; and how was it probable that such a matter could be settled
+after such a conversation as that which I have related?  That evening,
+Miss Le Smyrger asked whether the day had been fixed.  “No,” said Captain
+Broughton, harshly; “nothing has been fixed.”  “But it will be arranged
+before you go?”  “Probably not,” he said; and then the subject was
+dropped for the time.
+
+“John,” she said, just before she went to bed, “if there be anything
+wrong between you and Patience, I conjure you to tell me.”
+
+“You had better ask her,” he replied.  “I can tell you nothing.”
+
+On the following morning he was much surprised by seeing Patience on the
+gravel path before Miss Le Smyrger’s gate immediately after breakfast.
+He went to the door to open it for her, and she, as she gave him her
+hand, told him that she came up to speak to him.  There was no hesitation
+in her manner, nor any look of anger in her face.  But there was in her
+gait and form, in her voice and countenance, a fixedness of purpose which
+he had never seen before, or at any rate had never acknowledged.
+
+“Certainly,” said he.  “Shall I come out with you, or will you come up
+stairs?”
+
+“We can sit down in the summer-house,” she said; and thither they both
+went.
+
+“Captain Broughton,” she said—and she began her task the moment that they
+were both seated—“you and I have engaged ourselves as man and wife, but
+perhaps we have been over rash.”
+
+“How so?” said he.
+
+“It may be—and indeed I will say more—it is the case that we have made
+this engagement without knowing enough of each other’s character.”
+
+“I have not thought so.”
+
+“The time will perhaps come when you will so think, but for the sake of
+all that we most value, let it come before it is too late.  What would be
+our fate—how terrible would be our misery—if such a thought should come
+to either of us after we have linked our lots together.”
+
+There was a solemnity about her as she thus spoke which almost repressed
+him,—which for a time did prevent him from taking that tone of authority
+which on such a subject he would choose to adopt.  But he recovered
+himself.  “I hardly think that this comes well from you,” he said.
+
+“From whom else should it come?  Who else can fight my battle for me;
+and, John, who else can fight that same battle on your behalf?  I tell
+you this, that with your mind standing towards me as it does stand at
+present, you could not give me your hand at the altar with true words and
+a happy conscience.  Am I not true?  You have half repented of your
+bargain already.  Is it not so?”
+
+He did not answer her; but getting up from his seat walked to the front
+of the summer-house, and stood there with his back turned upon her.  It
+was not that he meant to be ungracious, but in truth he did not know how
+to answer her.  He had half repented of his bargain.
+
+“John,” she said, getting up and following him, so that she could put her
+hand upon his arm, “I have been very angry with you.”
+
+“Angry with me!” he said, turning sharp upon her.
+
+“Yes, angry with you.  You would have treated me like a child.  But that
+feeling has gone now.  I am not angry now.  There is my hand;—the hand of
+a friend.  Let the words that have been spoken between us be as though
+they had not been spoken.  Let us both be free.”
+
+“Do you mean it?”
+
+“Certainly I mean it.”  As she spoke these words her eyes filled with
+tears, in spite of all the efforts she could make; but he was not looking
+at her, and her efforts had sufficed to prevent any sob from being
+audible.
+
+“With all my heart,” he said; and it was manifest from his tone that he
+had no thought of her happiness as he spoke.  It was true that she had
+been angry with him—angry, as she had herself declared; but nevertheless,
+in what she had said and what she had done, she had thought more of his
+happiness than of her own.  Now she was angry once again.
+
+“With all your heart, Captain Broughton!  Well, so be it.  If with all
+your heart, then is the necessity so much the greater.  You go to-morrow.
+Shall we say farewell now?”
+
+“Patience, I am not going to be lectured.”
+
+“Certainly not by me.  Shall we say farewell now?”
+
+“Yes, if you are determined.”
+
+“I am determined.  Farewell, Captain Broughton.  You have all my wishes
+for your happiness.”  And she held out her hand to him.
+
+“Patience!” he said.  And he looked at her with a dark frown, as though
+he would strive to frighten her into submission.  If so, he might have
+saved himself any such attempt.
+
+“Farewell, Captain Broughton.  Give me your hand, for I cannot stay.”  He
+gave her his hand, hardly knowing why he did so.  She lifted it to her
+lips and kissed it, and then, leaving him, passed from the summer-house
+down through the wicket-gate, and straight home to the parsonage.
+
+During the whole of that day she said no word to any one of what had
+occurred.  When she was once more at home she went about her household
+affairs as she had done on that day of his arrival.  When she sat down to
+dinner with her father he observed nothing to make him think that she was
+unhappy; nor during the evening was there any expression in her face, or
+any tone in her voice, which excited his attention.  On the following
+morning Captain Broughton called at the parsonage, and the servant-girl
+brought word to her mistress that he was in the parlour.  But she would
+not see him.  “Laws, miss, you ain’t a quarrelled with your beau?” the
+poor girl said.  “No, not quarrelled,” she said; “but give him that.”  It
+was a scrap of paper, containing a word or two in pencil.  “It is better
+that we should not meet again.  God bless you.”  And from that day to
+this, now more than ten years, they never have met.
+
+“Papa,” she said to her father that afternoon, “dear papa, do not be
+angry with me.  It is all over between me and John Broughton.  Dearest,
+you and I will not be separated.”
+
+It would be useless here to tell how great was the old man’s surprise and
+how true his sorrow.  As the tale was told to him no cause was given for
+anger with any one.  Not a word was spoken against the suitor who had on
+that day returned to London with a full conviction that now at least he
+was relieved from his engagement.  “Patty, my darling child,” he said,
+“may God grant that it be for the best!”
+
+“It is for the best,” she answered stoutly.  “For this place I am fit;
+and I much doubt whether I am fit for any other.”
+
+On that day she did not see Miss Le Smyrger, but on the following
+morning, knowing that Captain Broughton had gone off, having heard the
+wheels of the carriage as they passed by the parsonage gate on his way to
+the station,—she walked up to the Combe.
+
+“He has told you, I suppose?” said she.
+
+“Yes,” said Miss Le Smyrger.  “And I will never see him again unless he
+asks your pardon on his knees.  I have told him so.  I would not even
+give him my hand as he went.”
+
+“But why so, thou kindest one?  The fault was mine more than his.”
+
+“I understand.  I have eyes in my head,” said the old maid.  “I have
+watched him for the last four or five days.  If you could have kept the
+truth to yourself and bade him keep off from you, he would have been at
+your feet now, licking the dust from your shoes.”
+
+“But, dear friend, I do not want a man to lick dust from my shoes.”
+
+“Ah, you are a fool.  You do not know the value of your own wealth.”
+
+“True; I have been a fool.  I was a fool to think that one coming from
+such a life as he has led could be happy with such as I am.  I know the
+truth now.  I have bought the lesson dearly,—but perhaps not too dearly,
+seeing that it will never be forgotten.”
+
+There was but little more said about the matter between our three friends
+at Oxney Colne.  What, indeed, could be said?  Miss Le Smyrger for a year
+or two still expected that her nephew would return and claim his bride;
+but he has never done so, nor has there been any correspondence between
+them.  Patience Woolsworthy had learned her lesson dearly.  She had given
+her whole heart to the man; and, though she so bore herself that no one
+was aware of the violence of the struggle, nevertheless the struggle
+within her bosom was very violent.  She never told herself that she had
+done wrong; she never regretted her loss; but yet—yet—the loss was very
+hard to bear.  He also had loved her, but he was not capable of a love
+which could much injure his daily peace.  Her daily peace was gone for
+many a day to come.
+
+Her father is still living; but there is a curate now in the parish.  In
+conjunction with him and with Miss Le Smyrger she spends her time in the
+concerns of the parish.  In her own eyes she is a confirmed old maid; and
+such is my opinion also.  The romance of her life was played out in that
+summer.  She never sits now lonely on the hill-side thinking how much she
+might do for one whom she really loved.  But with a large heart she loves
+many, and, with no romance, she works hard to lighten the burdens of
+those she loves.
+
+As for Captain Broughton, all the world know that he did marry that great
+heiress with whom his name was once before connected, and that he is now
+a useful member of Parliament, working on committees three or four days a
+week with a zeal that is indefatigable.  Sometimes, not often, as he
+thinks of Patience Woolsworthy, a gratified smile comes across his face.
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PARSON'S DAUGHTER OF OXNEY
+COLNE***
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