when her father had finished his slender modicum of toddy, she tied on
her hat and went on her walk. She started forth with a quick step, and
left no word to say by which route she would go. As she passed up along
the little lane which led towards Oxney Colne she would not even look to
see if he was coming towards her; and when she left the road, passing
over a stone stile into a little path which ran first through the upland
fields, and then across the moor ground towards Helpholme, she did not
look back once, or listen for his coming step.

She paid her visit, remaining upwards of an hour with the old bedridden
mother of the farmer of Helpholme. 'God bless you, my darling!' said the
old lady as she left her; 'and send you someone to make your own path
bright and happy through the world.' These words were still ringing in
her ears with all their significance as she saw John Broughton waiting
for her at the first stile which she had to pass after leaving the
farmer's haggard.

'Patty,' he said, as he took her hand, and held it close within both his
own, 'what a chase I have had after you!'

'And who asked you, Captain Broughton?' she answered, smiling. 'If the
journey was too much for your poor London strength, could you not have
waited till tomorrow morning, when you would have found me at the
parsonage?' But she did not draw her hand away from him, or in any way
pretend that he had not a right to accost her as a lover.

'No, I could not wait. I am more eager to see those I love than you seem
to be.'

'How do you know whom I love, or how eager I might be to see them? There