 offered you this, Nathanael; but since you are so steadfast, so wise——Yes! it is indeed, considering all things, the wisest course you can pursue. Only, I will agree to nothing unless your wife consents."
"I will not consent," said Agatha, determinedly.
There was an uncomfortable pause.
"I see in your plan no reason—no right," continued she, forgetting in her annoyance even the outward deference with which her sense of conjugal dignity led her invariably to treat her husband. "Why was I never told this before?"
"Because I never thought of it myself until this morning."
The exceeding gentleness of his tone surprised her, and restrained many more words, not over-sweet, which were issuing from her angry lips.
"The fact is, Agatha—I may speak before Anne Valery whom we both love"—
"And who loves you both as if you had been her own kindred."
These words, so tremulously said, swept away a little bitterness that was rising up in Agatha's heart against Miss Valery.
"It is necessary," Mr. Harper went on—"imperatively so, for my comfort—that I should at once do something. And in choosing one's work, it always seemed to me there was great wisdom in the rule—'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.' Many things I could not do; this I can, well and faithfully, as Anne will find. Nor need I feel ashamed of being steward to Miss Valery."
Agatha felt her spirit of opposition quaking on its throne. "But your father—your sisters. What will they all say at Kingcombe Holm?"
"Nothing that I cannot combat. My father will be glad of our settling near him in Dorsetshire."
"In Dorsetshire!" echoed Mrs. Harper dolefully; and thereupon fled her last visions of a gay London home. Yet she already liked her husband's county and people well enough to bear the sacrifice with tolerable equanimity.
"And whatever he says, whatever any one else says, I have no fear, if my wife will only stand by me, and trust that I do everything for the best."
His wife listened, not without agitation, for she remembered their first dispute, only a few days ago. Here was rising another storm. Yet either she felt weaker to contend, or something in Nathanael's manner lured her to believe him in the right. She listened—only half-convinced, yet still she listened.
Anne Valery did the same, though she
