"I know you didn't. Gilbert, but _I_ do! It is mine, and must be mine, to be yours; here you must let me have my own way--I will obey you in everything else. Four years is not long for us to wait, having faith in each other; and in that time, I doubt not, your mother's secret will be revealed. You cannot, must not, press her further; in the meantime we will see each other as often as possible"--
"Four years!" Gilbert interrupted, in a tone almost of despair.
"Well--not quite," said Martha, smiling archly; "since you must know my exact age, Gilbert, I was twenty-one on the second of last February; so that the time is really three years, four months, and eleven days."
"I'd serve seven years, as Jacob served, if need be," he said. "It's not alone the waiting; it's the anxiety, the uncertainty, the terrible fear of that which I don't know. I'm sure that Betsy Lavender guesses something about it; have you told her what my mother says?"
"I didn't think," he answered, softly. "But it's well she should know. She is the best friend we have. Betsy!"
"A mortal long time afore _I_'m wanted!" exclaimed Miss Lavender, with assumed grimness, as she obeyed the call. "I s'pose you thought there was no watch needed, and both ends o' the path open to all the world. Well--what am _I_ to do?--move mountains like a grain o' mustard seed (or however it runs), dip out th' ocean with a pint-pot, or ketch old birds with chaff, eh?"
Gilbert, aware that she was familiar with the particular difficulties on Martha's side, now made her acquainted with his own. At the mention of his mother's declaration in regard to his birth, she lifted her hands and nodded her head, listening, thenceforth to the end, with half-closed eyes and her loose lips drawn up in a curious pucker.
"What do you think of it?" he asked, as she remained silent.
"Think of it? About as pretty a snarl as ever I see. I can't say as I'm so over and above taken aback by what your mother says. I've all along had a hankerin' suspicion of it in my bones. Some things seems to me like the smell o' water-melons, that I've knowed to come with fresh snow; you know there _is_ no water-melons, but then, there's the smell of 'em! But it won't do to hurry a matter o' this kind--long-sufferin' and slow to anger, though that don't quite suit, but never mind, all the same--my opinion is, ye've both o' ye got to wait!"