When I came into supper that evening my friend of the fog was beside father on the hearth-rug. Directly I saw him, I wondered how I could have been such a fool as not to have guessed at once that that was Mr. Trayton Harrod. But it had never occurred to me for a moment; and when I recognized in the man to whom I had promised to be friendly, also the person who had presumed to take me by the waist and pitch me over a gate, all my bad temper of before up within me worse than ever, and I felt as though it would be quite impossible for me even to be civil. And yet I had since promised somebody, even more definitely than I had promised Joyce, that I would do my best to make matters run .  
On that very evening father had made an appeal to my better feelings. It seems that, while I had been out, Reuben Ruck and mother had had a real pitched battle. Mother had told him to do something in preparation for the arrival of the bailiff, which he had[114] refused to do; and upon that mother had gone to father, and had said that it was absolutely necessary that Reuben should leave.
 
When I came home I had found father standing on the terrace in the sunset. It was a very unwise thing for him to do, for the air was chill. I wondered what had brought him out, and whether he could be looking for me. The little feeling of that had been between us since he had settled for the bailiff to come to the farm had given me a great deal of pain, and a lump rose in my throat as I saw him there watching me come up the hill. It was partly for the feelings I had had towards him, partly hope that he was going to want me again as he used to do.
 
"Where have you been, lass?" said he, when I reached him. "You look sadly."
 
I laughed. The tears were near, but I laughed. My arm hurt me very much, and my head ached strangely; but I was so glad to hear him speak to me again like that.
 
"The mist has taken my hair out of curl," said I; "that's all. I have been down to the cliffs to take old Warren some tea. Did you want me?"
 
"Yes," answered he; "I want to have a talk with you."
 
"Well, come in-doors then," said I. "You know you oughtn't to be out so late."
 
We went into the study. Mother and Deb were getting supper ready in the front dwelling-room. There was no lamp lit; we sat down in the dusk.
 
"Your mother and Reuben have had a row, Meg," began father, with a kind of twinkle in his eye, although he gravely.
 
"A row!" echoed I; "what about?"
 
"About Mr. Trayton Harrod," answered father; "she wants me to send Reuben away."
 
"Send Reuben away!" cried I, aghast. "Why, it wouldn't be possible. There would be more harm done by the old folks going away than any good that would come of new folks coming; that I'll warrant."
 
"That's not the question," said father, tapping the table with his hand. "Mr. Harrod has got to come, you know, and if the old folks don't like it, why, they'll have to go."
 
"There's one thing certain," added I, "Reuben wouldn't go if he were sent away fifty times."
 
Father laughed; the first time I had heard him laugh for a fortnight.
 
[115]
 
"Well, he'll have to be pleasant if he does stay," said he.
 
"Oh, you none of you understand Reuben," said I. "He's not so stupid as you all think. He'll be pleasant if he thinks it's for our good that he should be pleasant. He wishes us well. But he'll want convincing first. And," I added, with a little laugh, "maybe I want convincing myself first."
 
And it was then that father appealed to my better feelings.
 
"Yes, Meg," said he, "I know that. I've seen that all along, and maybe it's natural. We none of us like strangers about. But I thought fit to have Mr. Harrod come for the good of the farm, and now what we all have to do is to treat him civilly, and make the work easy for him." I was silent, but father went on: "And what I want you to do, Meg, is to help me make the work easy for him. It won't be easier to him than it is to us. If his father had not died beggared I suppose he would have had his own by now. It is a hard thing for children when their parents beggar them." It being dark, I could not see his face, but I heard him sigh, and I saw him pass his hand over his brow. "Mother is right," he added. "We ought to make him feel it as little as we can, and as Joyce is away, you're the daughter of the house now, Meg. I want you to remember that. I want you to do the honors of the house as a daughter should. What a daughter is at home a wife will be when she is married."
 
"I shall never marry," said I, with a short laugh. "But I'll behave properly, father, never fear."
 
"That's right, my lass," said father, who seemed to take this speech as meaning something more conciliatory than it looks now as I set it down. "He is coming to-night to supper. Mother means to ask him to come every night to supper. She would have liked to give him house-room, but that don't seem to be possible. So we mean to make him welcome to our board."
 
"All right," said I. "I suppose mother knows best."
 
"Yes," echoed father; "mother always knows best. She's a wise woman, that's why every one loves her."
 
Again I promised to do what I could to resemble mother—to conciliate Reuben, and to make myself agreeable to our guest. And yet, ! in spite of all tha............