That was a trifling matter; yet Rhoda felt the letter was not complete in the absence of the bridal name.  She fancied Dahlia to have meant, perhaps, that she was Dahlia to her as of old, and not a stranger.  “Dahlia ever; Dahlia nothing else for you,” she heard her sister say.  But how delicious and mournful, how terrible and sweet with meaning would “Dahlia Ayrton,” the new name in the dear handwriting, have looked!  “And I have a brother-in-law,” she thought, and her cheeks tingled.  The banks of fern and foxglove, and the green young oaks fringing the copse, grew rich in colour, as she reflected that this beloved unknown husband of her sister embraced her and her father as well; even the old bent beggarman on the sandy ridge, though he had a starved frame and carried pitiless faggots, stood illumined in a soft warmth.  Rhoda could not go back to the house.

It chanced that the farmer that morning had been smitten with the virtue of his wife’s opinion of Robert, and her parting recommendation concerning him.

“Have you a mind to either one of my two girls?” he put the question bluntly, finding himself alone with Robert.

Robert took a quick breath, and replied, “I have.”

“Then make your choice,” said the farmer, and tried to go about his business, but hung near Robert in the fields till he had asked:  “Which one is it, my boy?”

Robert turned a blade of wheat in his mouth.

“I think I shall leave her to tell that,” was his answer.

“Why, don’t ye know which one you prefer to choose, man?” quoth Mr. Fleming.

“I mayn’t know whether she prefers to choose me,” said Robert.

The farmer smiled.

“You never can exactly reckon about them; that’s true.”

He was led to think:  “Dahlia’s the lass;” seeing that Robert had not had many opportunities of speaking with her.

“When my girls are wives, they’ll do their work in the house,” he pursued.  “They may have a little bit o’ property in land, ye know, and they may have a share in—­in gold.  That’s not to be reckoned on.  We’re an old family, Robert, and I suppose we’ve our pride somewhere down.  Anyhow, you can’t look on my girls and not own they’re superior girls.  I’ve no notion of forcing them to clean, and dish up, and do dairying, if it’s not to their turn.  They’re handy with th’ needle.  They dress conformably, and do the millinery themselves.  And I know they say their prayers of a night.  That I know, if that’s a comfort to ye, and it should be, Robert.  For pray, and you can’t go far wrong; and it’s particularly good for girls.  I’ll say no more.”

At the dinner-table, Rhoda was not present.  Mr. Fleming fidgeted, blamed her and excused her, but as Robert appeared indifferent about her absence, he was confirmed in his idea that Dahlia attracted his fancy.

They had finished dinner, and Master Gammon had risen, when a voice immediately recognized as the voice of Anthony Hackbut was heard in the front part of the house.  Mr. Fleming went round to him with a dismayed face.