"It will be no trouble," Jem answered earnestly; "and if it can be found to-night it is far better nor waitin'. There is some things gets better for waitin', but others----"

Meg listened: surely there was a serious tone in this man's talk, such as her mother loved.

They were rapidly nearing the light in her mother's window.

"That is your home, ain't it?" asked Jem, pointing.

"Yes; how did you know?"

"I heard you lived there. May I come up to the door with you?"

Meg a.s.sented. She was rather surprised, but not sorry that he wished it.

When, however, he got to the door, he bade her an abrupt good-bye, and hastened back along the path.

She saw his form disappear in the direction of the stables, and then she opened the door and told her mother all about it.

"He's been working at the Hall for this month, mother; but I've never spoken to him before."

Mrs. Archer went to the door and looked anxiously down the lane, as if with her old eyes she could see the lost brooch herself.

"Dear, dear," she said, "to think I could have let you take it to be mended, and not have gone myself!"

Poor Meg stood beside her in silence. She wished it too; but how could she know she would lose it?

Just then a light twinkled down the lane, and pa.s.sed rapidly onwards.

Meg bethought herself.

"Mother, I _must_ go back," she exclaimed. "What will they say to me? I told them I should be home early. I'll try to send George over to know if--if he has found it."

So when after a quarter of an hour's search Jem came back with it to the cottage, the little bird whom he had hoped to see there was flown.

"I'm naught but a workman," he said to her, when after another month of seeking the little bird he caught her at last; "and I haven't anything nice to offer you, Meg. I can't give you such a home as you've been used to, not even as good as you might ha' had at yer mother's."

Meg was going to speak, but he went on as if he must say all that was in his heart.

"And I know I'm not so--so--refined, Meg, as you are. You have lived amongst gentlefolks, I've lived amongst the poor, and I know now what I didn't perhaps enough understand when I set my heart on you, that my speech and my bringin' up is not so good as yours. Meg, if I've done you a wrong in lovin' you, I'll go back home, and never come again--"

He paused: could he say any more? What would he do if she accepted that last alternative of his?

But Meg put her hand into his.

"It's the heart, that is the thing, Jem," she whispered, "and that's above fine words and ways."

"If you can be satisfied with that, Meg, we shall be very happy!" he answered, clasping her hand tightly; "for my whole heart is yours, which has never loved another."

"And I'm not afraid," Meg went on earnestly, "since you told me all that happened two years ago. Any one who has felt like that is safe to trust."

For Jem had told her one Sunday, when, with her mother's permission, he had walked home from the evening service with her, what a different man he had been since one particular day.

"I was going down a street near home," he had said, "when some people came along singin' somethin' which I thought sounded very swinging and pretty, and I stopped to listen. They marched along slowly, half-a-dozen of 'em carryin' a banner in front of them, with the words in large letters on it, 'Come to the hall at 7 o'clock and hear the good news.'

Still they went on with the singin', and I got curious to know what their good news was.

"'Ye must be born again, again, Ye must be born again, again; I verily, verily, say unto you, Ye must be born again!'

"On it went with a swingin' sort of roll, and I wondered, and followed on in spite of myself. 'Seven o'clock; hear the good news!' What good news was there in being told to be born again? Nonsense! this warn't any good news as I could see. I'd a deal sooner they'd have told me where I could ha' got a bit more work. That's what would ha' been good news to me, I thought. But I went with 'em, for all that; and the end of it all was, that I _was_ born again! That very night I got into a new sort o'

man. I left all the old things far away behind--'as far as the east is from the west,' the man who preached said, and I got instead such a white robe to cover me over, as made me feel whiter than the snow they sang about. And that's how I came to be different--just washed in the Blood of the Lamb!"

"I know what that means too," Meg had answered softly.

"I knew you did," he had said. And then they did not speak again till they parted at the Hall gates.

"So, though I'm naught but a workman, you can put up with me, Meg?" he asked, the day before he was going away, and the repairs were finished.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "d.i.c.kie," she whispered, as Jem paused, "don't yer like to hear about Jesus? That's the Good Shepherd what I've told you about, as loves the little lambs."--p.38.]

And she answered by putting her hand into his.

"One thing I can promise you," he said: "that as long as G.o.d gives me strength I'll work for you, Meg!"

"And after that I'll work for _you_!" she answered, while two tears glittered in her eyes.

In three months' time Meg left the sweet country and the great Hall, and her mother and young sister, and went to London to make Jem happy.

Mrs. MacDonald gave her a nice wedding breakfast, and much good advice, and Meg entered on her new life as we have seen, full of hope and peace.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER IV.

ROYAL CHILDREN.

"You didn't think as I was near you this afternoon, did you?" asked Jem, when he came in to his tea, a few days after their marriage.

"No, indeed," answered Meg, looking up; "were you?"

"Yes; you know the court what runs up under these houses, first turnin'

on the right?"

"I think I do."

"Well, one of them houses. My master has the job to repair them a bit; they're goin' to change hands, I believe, and so I shall be about here a good while before they're done."