When Miss Port had left her, Olive was so much disturbed by what that placid spinster had told her that she totally forgot Claude Locker’s proposal of marriage, as well as the other things she had been thinking about.  These things had been not at all unpleasant; she had been thinking of her uncle and her return to the toll-gate house.  Her visit to Broadstone was drawing to a close, and she was getting very tired of Mr. Locker and Mr. and Mrs. Fox.  She found, now her anger had cooled down, that she was actually missing her uncle, and was thinking of him as of some one who belonged to her.  Her own father had never seemed to belong to her; for periods of three years he was away on his ship; and, even when he had been on shore duty, she had sometimes been at school; and when she and her parents had been stationed somewhere together, the lieutenant had been a good deal away from home on this or that naval business.  When a girl she had taken these absences as a matter of course, but since she had been living with her uncle her ideas on the subject had changed.  She wanted now to be at home with him:  and as Broadstone was so near the toll-gate she had no doubt that Mrs. Easterfield would sometimes want her to come to her when, perhaps, she would have different people staying with her.

This was a very pleasant mental picture, and the more Olive had looked at it, the better she had liked it.  As to the reconciliation with her uncle, it troubled her mind but little.  So often had she been angry with people, and so often had everything been made all right again, that she felt used to the process.  Her way was simple enough; when she was tired of her indignation she quietly dropped it; and then, taking it for granted that the other party had done the same, she recommenced her usual friendly intercourse, just as if there had never been a quarrel or misunderstanding.  She had never found this method to fail—­although, of course, it might easily have failed with one who was not Olive—­and she had not the slightest doubt that if she wrote to her uncle that she was coming on a certain day, she would be gladly received by him when she should arrive.

But now?  After what that woman had told her, what now?  If her uncle had said she was not coming back, there was an end to her mental pictures and her pleasant plans.  And what a hard man he must be to say that!

Slowly walking over the grass, Olive went to look for Mrs. Easterfield, and found her in her garden on her knees by a flower-bed digging with a little trowel.

“Mrs. Easterfield,” said she, “I am thinking of getting married.”

The elder lady sprang to her feet, dropping her trowel, which barely missed her toes.  She looked frightened.  “What?” she exclaimed.  “To whom?”

“Not to anybody in particular,” replied Olive.  “I am considering the subject in general.  Let’s go sit on that bench, and talk about it.”

A little relieved, Mrs. Easterfield followed her.  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said, when they were seated.  “Women don’t think of marriage in a general way; they consider it in a particular way.”