All the morning his eye was cold and quick; his mouth, when silent, close, firm, and unreadable; his voice clear, decided, and occasionally loud.  But when he got to old Merton’s fireside he mellowed and softened like the sun toward evening.  There his forehead unknit itself; his voice, pitched in quite a different key from his key of business, turned also low and gentle, and soothed and secretly won the hearer by its deep, rich and pleasant modulation and variety; and his eye turned deeper in color, and, losing its keenness and restlessness, dwelt calmly and pensively for minutes at a time upon some little household object close to Susan; seldom, unless quite unobserved, upon Susan herself.

But the surrounding rustics suspected nothing, so calm and deep ran Meadows.

“Dear heart,” said Susan to her father, “who would have thought Mr. Meadows would come a mile out of his way twice a week to talk to me about Geo—­about the country where my heart is—­and the folk say he thinks of nothing but money and won’t move a step without making it.”

“The folk are envious of him, girl—­that is all.  John Meadows is too clever for fools, and too industrious for the lazy ones; he is a good friend of mine, Susan; if I wanted to borrow a thousand pounds I have only to draw on Meadows; he has told me so half a dozen times.”

“We don’t want his money, father,” replied Susan, “nor anybody’s; but I think a great deal of his kindness, and George shall thank him when he comes home—­if ever he comes home to Susan again.”  These last words brought many tears with them, which the old farmer pretended not to notice, for he was getting tired of his daughter’s tears.  They were always flowing now at the least word, “and she used to be so good-humored and cheerful-like.”

Poor Susan! she was very unhappy.  If any one had said to her, “to-morrow you die,” she would have smiled on her own account, and only sighed at the pain the news would cause poor George.  Her George was gone, her mother had been dead this two years.  Her life, which had been full of innocent pleasures, was now utterly tasteless, except in its hours of bitterness when sorrow overcame her like a flood.  She had a pretty flower-garden in which she used to work.  When George was at home what pleasure it had been to plant them with her lover’s help, to watch them expand, to water them in the summer evening, to smell their gratitude for the artificial shower after a sultry day, and then to have George in, and set him admiring them with such threadbare enthusiasm, simply because they were hers, not in the least because they were Nature’s.

I will go back, like the epic writers, and sketch one of their little garden scenes.

One evening, after watering them all, she sat down on a seat at the bottom of the garden, and casting her eyes over her whole domain, said, “Well, now, I do admire flowers; don’t you, George?”

“That I do,” replied George, taking another seat, and coolly turning his back on the parterre, and gazing mildly into Susan’s eyes.