"I admire Mr.Walter very much, as any woman must with eyes in her head, and I love him for loving of you so truly, and like a man, for it does not become a man to shilly-shally, but I never saw him till he _was_ a man, but you are the child I nursed, and prayed over, and trembled for in sickness, and rejoiced over in health, and left a good master because I saw he did not love you so well as I did." These words went to Mary's heart, and she flew to her nurse, and hung weeping round her neck.

Her tears made the manly but tender-hearted Walter give a sort of gulp.

Mary heard it, and put her white hand out to him.

He threw himself upon his knees, and kissed it devotedly, and the coy girl was won.
From this hour Walter gave her no breathing-time; he easily talked over old Baker, and got him to excuse his short absence; he turned his hunters into roadsters, and rode them very hard; he got the special license; he squared a clergyman at the head of the lake, who was an old friend of his and fond of fees, and in three days after her consent, Mary and Mrs.
Easton drove a four-wheeled carriage Walter had lent them to the little hotel at the lakes.

Walter had galloped over at eleven o'clock, and they all three took a little walk together.