"Patience,--I think you can hardly know what words you are saying to
me."

"Pardon me, but I think I do. Nothing that you can give me--no gifts
of that description--can weigh aught against that which I am giving
you. If you had all the wealth and rank of the greatest lord in the
land, it would count as nothing in such a scale. If--as I have not
doubted--if in return for my heart you have given me yours, then--then-
-then you have paid me fully. But when gifts such as those are going,
nothing else can count even as a make-weight."

"I do not quite understand you," he answered, after a pause. "I fear
you are a little high-flown." And then, while the evening was still
early, they walked back to the parsonage almost without another word.

Captain Broughton at this time had only one full day more to remain at
Oxney Colne. On the afternoon following that he was to go as far as
Exeter, and thence return to London. Of course, it was to be expected
that the wedding day would be fixed before he went, and much had been
said about it during the first day or two of his engagement. Then he
had pressed for an early time, and Patience, with a girl's usual
diffidence, had asked for some little delay. But now nothing was said
on the subject; and how was it probable that such a matter could be
settled after such a conversation as that which I have related? That
evening, Miss Le Smyrger asked whether the day had been fixed. "No,"
said Captain Broughton, harshly; "nothing has been fixed." "But it
will be arranged before you go?" "Probably not," he said; and then the
subject was dropped for the time.