"Aggie is only a child, but she has a loving, faithful little heart,
and I said to myself, 'If I throw her with this boy, who, she knows,
has saved her life, for two years, she is sure to have a strong
affection for him.'

"Many things may happen afterwards. If the squire takes her they will
be separated. He may get to care for someone, and so may she, but it's
just giving him a chance.

"Then, too, I thought a little about myself. I liked to fancy that,
even though she would have to go from me to the squire, my little plan
may yet turn out, and it would be I, not he, who had arranged for the
future happiness of my little darling. I shouldn't have told you all
this, ma'am; but you would have it."

"I am glad you brought her to me, Sergeant Wilks, anyhow," Mrs. Walsham
said, "for I love her dearly, and she has been a great pleasure to me;
but what you are talking about is simply nonsense. My son is a good
boy, and will, I hope, grow up an honourable gentleman like his father;
but he cannot look so high as the granddaughter of Squire Linthorne."

"More unequal marriages have been made than that, ma'am," the sergeant
said sturdily; "but we won't say more about it. I have thought it over
and over, many a hundred times, as I wheeled my box across the hills,
and it don't seem to me impossible. I will agree that the squire would
never say yes; but the squire may be in his grave years before Aggie
comes to think about marriage. Besides, it is more than likely that he
will have nothing to say to my pet. If his pride made him cast his son
off, rather than acknowledge my daughter as his, it will keep him from