“Will is what I said, brother William John; if good gals, and civil, and marry decently—­eh?” and he faced about to Rhoda who was walking with Miss Wicklow.  “What does she look so down about, my dear?  Never be down.  I don’t mind you telling your young man, whoever he is; and I’d like him to be a strapping young six-footer I’ve got in my eye, who farms.  What does he farm with to make farming answer now-a-days?  Why, he farms with brains.  You’ll find that in my last week’s Journal, brother William John, and thinks I, as I conned it—­the farmer ought to read that!  You may tell any young man you like, my dear, that your old uncle’s fond of ye.”

On their arrival home, Mrs. Wicklow met them with a letter in her hand.  It was for Rhoda from Dahlia, saying that Dahlia was grieved to the heart to have missed her dear father and her darling sister.  But her husband had insisted upon her going out to make particular purchases, and do a dozen things; and he was extremely sorry to have been obliged to take her away, but she hoped to see her dear sister and her father very, very soon.  She wished she were her own mistress that she might run to them, but men when they are husbands require so much waiting on that she could never call five minutes her own.  She would entreat them to call tomorrow, only she would then be moving to her new lodgings.  “But, oh! my dear, my blessed Rhoda!” the letter concluded, “do keep fast in your heart that I do love you so, and pray that we may meet soon, as I pray it every night and all day long.  Beg father to stop till we meet.  Things will soon be arranged.  They must.  Oh! oh, my Rhoda, love! how handsome you have grown.  It is very well to be fair for a time, but the brunettes have the happiest lot.  They last, and when we blonde ones cry or grow thin, oh! what objects we become!”

There were some final affectionate words, but no further explanations.

The wrinkles again settled on the farmer’s mild, uncomplaining forehead.

Rhoda said:  “Let us wait, father.”

When alone, she locked the letter against her heart, as to suck the secret meaning out of it.  Thinking over it was useless; except for this one thought:  how did her sister know she had grown very handsome?  Perhaps the housemaid had prattled.

CHAPTER XI

Dahlia, the perplexity to her sister’s heart, lay stretched at full length upon the sofa of a pleasantly furnished London drawing-room, sobbing to herself, with her handkerchief across her eyes.  She had cried passion out, and sobbed now for comfort.

She lay in her rich silken dress like the wreck of a joyful creature, while the large red Winter sun rounded to evening, and threw deep-coloured beams against the wall above her head.  They touched the nut-brown hair to vivid threads of fire:  but she lay faceless.  Utter languor and the dread of looking at her eyelids in the glass kept her prostrate.