“No.”

“Then we were talking of Phil’s going to England, to be a great architect.”

“Going to England!” She looked as if she could not have rightly understood.

“Yes,” said I, “in a year from now, to stay, the Lord knows how long.”

She turned white, then red; and had the strangest look.

“Is it true?” she asked, after a moment, turning to Phil.

“Yes.  I am to go next June.”

“But father—­does he know?”

“I told him this afternoon.  He is willing.”

“To be sure, to be sure,” she said, thoughtfully.  “He has no authority over you.  ’Tis different with us.  Oh, Phil, if you could only take me with you!” There was wistful longing and petulant complaint in the speech.  And then, as Phil answered, an idea seemed to come to her all at once; and she to rise to it by its possibility, rather than to fall back from its audacity.

“I would gladly,” said he; “but your father would never consent that a Faringfield—­”

“Well, one need not always be a Faringfield,” she replied, looking him straight in the face, with a kind of challenge in her voice and eyes.

“Why—­perhaps not,” said Phil, for the mere sake of agreeing, and utterly at a loss as to her meaning.

“You don’t understand,” says she.  “A father’s authority over his daughter ceases one day.”

“Ay, no doubt,” says Phil; “when she becomes of legal age.  But even then, without her father’s consent—­”

“Why, now,” she interrupted, “suppose her father’s authority over her passed to somebody else; somebody of her father’s own preference; somebody that her father already knew was going to England:  could her father forbid his taking her?”

“But, ’tis impossible,” replied mystified Phil.  “To whom in the world would your father pass his authority over you?  He is hale and hearty; there’s not the least occasion for a guardian.”

“Why, fathers do, you know.”

“Upon my soul, I don’t see—­”

“I vow you don’t!  You are the blindest fellow!  Didn’t Polly Livingstone’s father give up his authority over her the other day—­to Mr. Ludlow?”

“Certainly, to her husband.”

“Well!”

“Margaret—­do you mean—?  But you can’t mean that?” Phil had not the voice to say more, emerging so suddenly from the clouds of puzzlement to the yet uncertain sunshine of joy.

“Why shouldn’t I mean that?” says she, with the prettiest laugh, which made her bold behaviour seem the most natural, feminine act imaginable.  “Am I not good enough for you?”

“Madge!  You’re not joking, are you?” He caught her hands, and gazed with still dubious rapture at her across the fence.

My sensations may easily be imagined.  But by the time she had assured him she was perfectly in earnest, I had taught myself to act the man; and so I said, playfully: 

“Such a contract, though ’tis made before witnesses, surely ought to be sealed.”