“One day—­it came upon me like a thunderbolt—­your son told me he wanted to marry my Agnes.  I was angry, at first.  Angry, because it had been done behind my back, and because I had been deceived.  I said as much; but your son assured me that he had never spoken to her in the house, but had met her when she went out for her walks.  Still, it was wrong, and I told him so, and I told her so, though, in my heart, I did not altogether blame them; for young people will be young people, and, as he had acted honourably in coming to me at once, I let that pass.

“But, squire, though but a sergeant in His Majesty’s service, I had my pride as you had yours, and I told him, at once, that I would not give my consent to my daughter’s marrying him, until you had given yours; and that he must leave the house at once, and not see Agnes again, until he came with your written consent to show me.

“He went away at once.  After a time, he began to write to me, urging me to change my decision; and from this, although he never said so, I was sure that you had refused to sanction his marriage.  However, I stuck to what I had said, though it was hard for me to do so, with my child growing thin and pale before my eyes, with all her bright happiness gone.

“So it went on, for three months, and then one morning she was gone, and I found a letter on her table for me, saying that she had been married to him a week before, when she went out, as I thought, to spend the day with a friend.  She begged and prayed me to forgive her, and said how miserable she had been, and that she could not say no to her lover’s pleadings.

“I wrote to the address she had given me, saying that she had well nigh broken my heart.  She knew that I had only refused my consent because it would have seemed a dishonourable action, to allow your son to marry her without your consent.  She knew how hard it had been for me to do my duty, when I saw her pining before my eyes, but I forgave her wholly, and did not altogether blame her, seeing that it was the way of Nature that young women, when they once took to loving, should put their father altogether in the second place;

“It was hard to me to write that letter, for I longed to see her bonny face again.  But I thought it was my duty.  I thought so then; but I think, now, it was pride.

“From time to time she wrote to me.  I learned that you still refused to see your son, and I gathered, though she did not say much of this, that things were going badly with them.  At last, she wrote that her husband was ill—­very ill, she feared.  He had, in vain, tried to get employment.  I don’t think he was naturally strong, and the anxiety had broken him down.  Then I went up to London at once, and found them, in a little room, without the necessaries of life.  I brought them down home, and nursed him for three months, till he died.

“A week later, Aggie was born.  Ten days afterwards, I laid her mother by the side of her father.  No answer had come to the letters he had written to you, while he had been ill, though in the later ones he had told you that he was dying.  So, I looked upon the child as mine.