“He is certainly the most provoking man I ever saw!” she exclaimed, half crying with vexation.  “Henry wouldn’t have served me so, and I’m glad I was engaged to him before I saw this hateful Carrollton, for grandma might possibly have coaxed me into marrying him, and then wouldn’t Mr. Dog and Mrs. Cat have led a stormy life!  No, we wouldn’t,” she continued; “I should in time get accustomed to minding him, and then I think he’d be splendid, though no better than Henry.  I wonder if Hagar has a letter for me!” and, chirruping to Gritty, she soon stood at the door of the cabin.

“Have you two been quarreling?” asked Hagar, noticing Maggie’s flushed cheeks.  “Mr. Carrollton passed here twenty minutes or more ago, looking mighty sober, and here you are with your face as red—­What has happened?”

“Nothing,” answered Maggie, a little testily, “only he’s the meanest man!  Wouldn’t follow me when I leaped the gorge, and I know he could if he had tried.”

“Showed his good sense,” interrupted Hagar, adding that Maggie mustn’t think every man was going to risk his neck for her.

“I don’t think so, of course,” returned Maggie; “but he might act better—­almost commanded me to come back and join him, as though I was a little child; but I wouldn’t do it.  I told him I’d go down to the long bridge and cross, expecting, of course, he’d meet me there; and instead of that he has gone off home.  How did he know what accident would befall me?”

“Accident!” repeated Hagar; “accident befall you, who know every crook and turn of these woods so much better than he does!”

“Well, anyway, he might have waited for me,” returned Maggie.  “I don’t believe he’d care if I were to get killed.  I mean to scare him and see;” and, springing from Gritty’s back, she gave a peculiar whistling sound, at which the pony bounded away towards home, while she followed Hagar into the cottage, where a letter from Henry awaited her.

They were to sail for Cuba on the 15th of October, and he now wrote asking if Maggie would go without her grandmother’s consent.  But, though irresolute when he before broached the subject, Maggie was decided now.  She would not run away; and so she said to Hagar, to whom she confided the whole affair.

“I do not think it would be right to elope,” she said.  “In three years more I shall be twenty-one, and free to do as I like; and if grandma will not let me marry Henry now, he must wait.  I can’t run away.  Rose would not approve of it, I’m sure, and I almost know Mr. Carrollton would not.”

“I can’t see how his’ approving or not approving can affect you,” said Hagar; then bending down, so that her wild eyes looked full in Maggie’s eyes, she said, “Are you beginning to like this Englishman?”

“Why, no, I guess I aint,” answered Maggie, coloring slightly.  “I dislike him dreadfully, he’s so proud.  Why, he did the same as to say that if I were your grandchild he would not ride with me!”