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 passed rapidly onwards.
"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?
"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."