“I think as we better had get tied together arter morning service!  And then, you know, I’ll take you and the bit of a baby home long o’ me, Hannah.  And I’ll be a loving husband to you, my girl; and I’ll be a father to the little lad with as good a will as ever I was to my own orphan brothers and sisters.  And I’ll break every bone in the skin of any man that looks askance at him, too!  Don’t you fear for yourself or the child.  The country side knows me for a peaceable-disposed man; but it had rather not provoke me for all that, because it knows when I have a just cause of quarrel, I don’t leave my work half done!  Come, Hannah, what do you say, my dear?  Shall it be o’ Sunday?  You won’t answer me?  What, crying, my girl, crying! what’s that for?”

The tears were streaming from Hannah’s eyes.  She took up her apron and buried her face in its folds.

“Now what’s all that about?” continued Reuben, in distress; then suddenly brightening up, he said:  “Oh, I know now!  You’re thinking of Nancy and Peggy!  Don’t be afeard, Hannah!  They won’t do, nor say, nor even so much as look anything to hurt your feelings! and they had better not, if they know which side their bread is buttered!  I am the master of my own house, I reckon, poor as it is!  And my wife will be the mistress; and my sisters must keep their proper places!  Come, Hannah! come, my darling, what do you say to me?"’ he whispered, putting his arm over her shoulders, while he tried to draw the apron from her face.

She dropped her apron, lifted her face, looked at him through her falling tears, and answered: 

“This is what I have to say to you, dear, dearest, best loved Reuben!  I feel your goodness in the very depths of my heart; I thank you with all my soul; I will love you—­you only—­in silence and in solitude all my life; I will pray for you daily and nightly; but—­” She stopped and sobbed.

“But—­” said Reuben breathlessly.

“I will never carry myself and my dishonor under your honest roof.”

Reuben caught his suspended breath with a sharp gasp and gazed in blank dismay upon the sobbing woman for a few minutes, and then he said: 

“Hannah—­oh, my Lord!  Hannah, you never mean to say that you won’t marry me?”

“I mean just that, Reuben.”

“Oh, Hannah, what have I done to offend you?  I never meant to do it!  I don’t even know how I’ve done it!  I’m such a blundering animal!  But tell me what it is, and I will beg your pardon!”

“It is nothing, you good, true heart! nothing!  But you have two sisters—­”

“There, I knew it!  It’s Nancy and Peggy!  They’ve been doing something to hurt your feelings!  Well, Hannah, they shall come here and ask your forgiveness, or else they shall leave my home and go to earn their living in somebody’s kitchen!  I’ve been a father to them gals; but I won’t suffer them to insult my own dear Hannah!” burst forth Reuben.