Mistress Mary was a prudent woman.  She pursed up her lips and uttered a little sound expressive of discontent.

“Dear Betty,” she said, “it is doubtless a very good thing to be in love with a stranger romantically, but still—­”

“He is no stranger,” said Betty quickly.

“No, no, not to be called a stranger,” cried Mary, laughing—­“an old and valued friend of two months’ standing.”

“The time is short,” said Betty thoughtfully.  “But a whole lifetime seems to have passed in that space!  My father,” she cried, as Mr. Ives entered the room, “here is Mistress Mary Jones.”

“Come to offer my warmest good wishes,” said the lady, “and also all the assistance in my power when the important day approaches.”

“I shall indeed be glad and grateful for your help,” said Betty affectionately.

Mr. Ives persuaded Mary to remain for supper.  The candles were brought in, and the room looked bright and cheery.

“Stay with me and cheer my loneliness,” said the parson cheerily.  “The young folk will stroll in the garden till supper be ready.  I am too old for dewy twilight walks, egad.”

Was it a new idea that flashed into Mary’s mind that caused her to start?  She glanced at Mr. Ives’ comely person, at his glossy cassock, his smartly-buckled shoes, at the neat tie-wig which surmounted a face which she hastily pronounced as handsome as it ever had been.

With a sweep of her fan Mistress Mary renounced her waning youth.

“Stay with you!” she cried, “that will I! and you and I from the window will superintend our dear young ones.  Alas!” she said, with a languishing look, “how lonely the house will seem when you are bereft of your daughter.”

Mr. Ives sighed deeply.

Outside in the gloaming, Betty Ives and her young lover walked slowly backwards and forwards under the orchard trees.

“No father, no mother, no sisters!” she said, looking up into his face.  “No one to love, no one to love you!”

“I do not know whether I am to be pitied,” he answered with a light laugh.  “My life has been one of strange vicissitudes.  No, no, sweet Bet; I have often thanked God that no one shared my life.”

“But you will never do so again,” she said earnestly.

“Sweetheart!” he answered.  “Until you have once drunk of the cup of happiness you know not what it is; but once tasted, you can ill spare it thenceforth.”

“Ah, some day you will tell me about this life of yours—­will you not?”

“Some day, my heart, when you and I are alone together in the fair woods of Belton—­when you are my precious wife, and when days have passed on, and our full trust and confidence each in the other is proved and strengthened by time.  But not now, beloved, not now.”

“Have you known griefs, sorrows?”

“A few.”

“Happiness?”

“Yes, and triumphs often.”