“And you had your way,” Mrs. Walsham said, smiling, “though it was with some difficulty.”

“I expected it would be difficult, ma’am; but I made up my mind to that, and had you kept on refusing I should, as a last chance, have told you whose child she was.”

“But why me?” Mrs. Walsham asked.  “Why were you so particularly anxious that she should come to me, of all people?”

The sergeant smiled.

“It’s difficult to tell you, ma’am, but I had a reason.”

“But what was it?” Mrs. Walsham persisted.

The sergeant hesitated.

“You may think me an old fool, ma’am, but I will tell you what fancy came into my mind.  Your son saved Aggie’s life.  He was twelve years old, she was five, seven years’ difference.”

“Why, what nonsense, sergeant!” Mrs. Walsham broke in with a laugh.  “You don’t mean to say that fancy entered your head!”

“It did, ma’am,” Sergeant Wilks said gravely.  “I liked the look of the boy much.  He was brave and modest, and a gentleman.  I spoke about him to the fishermen that night, and everyone had a good word for him; so I said to myself, ’I can’t reward him for what he has done directly, but it may be that I can indirectly.’

“Aggie is only a child, but she has a loving, faithful little heart, and I said to myself, ’If I throw her with this boy, who, she knows, has saved her life, for two years, she is sure to have a strong affection for him.’

“Many things may happen afterwards.  If the squire takes her they will be separated.  He may get to care for someone, and so may she, but it’s just giving him a chance.

“Then, too, I thought a little about myself.  I liked to fancy that, even though she would have to go from me to the squire, my little plan may yet turn out, and it would be I, not he, who had arranged for the future happiness of my little darling.  I shouldn’t have told you all this, ma’am; but you would have it.”

“I am glad you brought her to me, Sergeant Wilks, anyhow,” Mrs. Walsham said, “for I love her dearly, and she has been a great pleasure to me; but what you are talking about is simply nonsense.  My son is a good boy, and will, I hope, grow up an honourable gentleman like his father; but he cannot look so high as the granddaughter of Squire Linthorne.”

“More unequal marriages have been made than that, ma’am,” the sergeant said sturdily; “but we won’t say more about it.  I have thought it over and over, many a hundred times, as I wheeled my box across the hills, and it don’t seem to me impossible.  I will agree that the squire would never say yes; but the squire may be in his grave years before Aggie comes to think about marriage.  Besides, it is more than likely that he will have nothing to say to my pet.  If his pride made him cast his son off, rather than acknowledge my daughter as his, it will keep him from acknowledging her daughter as his grandchild.  I hope it will, with all my heart; I hope so.”