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
is an old woman there whom I love, and I have thought nothing of this
walk with the object of seeing her.
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